The reluctant Colourist

Accidents happen

For years I have been drawn further and further into the vortex of BW photography. As I keep repeating around me, once you have done a platinum print, nothing else can do.

Well I admit that for family pictures I also do colour, some at least. Where colour is most delicious in my view is either with Silbersaltz film and scan (free advertising) or with the simple and oh so subtle Provia 100F. I do appreciate how easy the Provia is to scan.

Still my project work is fully Black and White, I even went as far as adding a monochrome camera.

I went recently on a workshop with Julien Carcano (instagram @julien_carcano). I appreciated his minimalist approach and thought I would benefit from his expertise as I move towards more abstraction on my seascape ongoing (lifelong would be more accurate) project.

I duly went with him practicing specific techniques, among which multi shot panoramic photography.

I went with him for some classic shots of the ship and sea type and then quickly veered into my usual fatal attraction: more meditative scenes, layered, decidedly letting loose the mystic in me.

What I had not expected was how a simple accident of post processing challenged my views of a Black and White only photographic world.

It started with this photograph where I accidentally pushed the exposure slider too high, creating a quasi monochrome image. But not quite. Allied with the meditative 2.35 : 1 ratio, I immediately thought that will be to my reluctant liking. A monochromatic colour image that I quite like. Not too much colour. You know the problem with colours is there are so many of them, so much colour to ruin the essence of this mystical link to the universe I am trying to capture.

Then using the accidental setting, (compared to my normal process) I carried on and ended up pretty amazed at the colour but not quite colour images that I had created.

Probably all this will sound quite meeehhh to you call colourists out there, however I admit having felt real joy at these images.

Now, because there always are exceptions, this one does have a bit too much colour for me, and is not quite the abstract I wish to do but hey, like it still.

Now, will this join my ongoing project. Definitely no. Black and White is the defining point of this series.

However I recognise that a side project may ensue with a colour element. If I can find a satisfying process for prints that is. I am still a very reluctant colourist.

Also this workshop made me realise how much I appreciated the long ratio 2.35 : 1

It is a shame that my sensor is then cropped to the utmost, defeating the format, given it would be great in larger sized prints. There always is the opportunity of a Technorama camera, I guess but is then 2.8: 1 ratio. Oh well, that’s a different discussion

Thank you for having read this rambling that far!