THE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES: HOW TO READ PHOTOGRAPHS

UNTITLED, STANLEY PARK, VANCOUVER, B.C.

photo by Michael O'Brien

When we look at a color image, the PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOUR plays a big role in our READING of that photo i.e. our personal, cultural and unconscious associations to the colours in the palette of that photograph. Since these associations to colour are absent in B&W pictures such as this one: we are free to take a much different reading of the photograph. For instance, for me, the green leaves would have worked well against the clear blue sky in colour, but what would the image be saying? In B&W the mass and weight of this tree come to the forefront, so does it's prolific output of leaves. I can almost hear this tree breath. None of this comes through in the colour version.