You get the (B&W) picture

[Ira_Silverman]

While listening to and peripherally participating in recent threads that concerned the interpretation of color in WW1 vintage black & white photographs, some thoughts concerning B&W photography in general crossed my mind.

Maybe I’m mellowing with age (Tuesday I hit the big five-oh), but I would like to solicit ideas here and keep it objective and non-confrontational.

Forgetting for a minute the differences between panchromatic and orthochromatic film, my premise is this:

(1) The only way to establish color on a (WW1 vintage) B&W photograph is if there is a known reference color in the photograph.

(2) It is impossible to establish color by comparing two black & white pictures unless it is known with certainity that the negatives came from the same roll of film.

My reasoning goes like this:

Density of a B&W negative is extremely dependent on developing time, temperature and strength of developer. Underdevelop the film (by say 15 seconds on a 5 minute process), and the negative will be thick and print light. Similarly overdevelop and the thin negative will print dark. Have the temperature high, and the development accelerates; at lower temperature more development time is necessary. And if the developer is not replenished as it is used and discarded when saturated, there will be additional negative impact (allright – grant me one bad pun).

It cannot be assumed that any two rolls were processed under the same controlled conditions. Realize that this goes for both the processing of the negative AND the print.

How well controlled was the processing of the first during the Great War? Certainly if film was processed in the field, all these variables can be called into question. If the undeveloped film was saved for processing on leave or at a major depot, there was likely better control, but how much more?

Is this valid conjecture? Or am I out in left field on this one?

[Ron_F]

Ira,
Good points, as far as i can tell. i only had limited time exposure to film processing in High school, so i cant confirm one way or another.

but as another poster confirmed in regards to photos in books, the way its presented in a book can change shades as well as the angle at which the photo was taken in relation to the sun.

thus, giving rise to controversy as to color due to lightness/darkness of the photo.

my .02 worth...

Ron

[Ginger.]

Every time I have a reprint from the same negative the colours vary,It must have been even more hit and miss 80 yeare ago.They were trying to make sure there was a record of what was probably going to be a short but desperate life.It's only us thats seeing ghostly paintpots!!!

I've been making prints from original WWII b&w negatives... and that stuff is poor enough quality! I'm doing good to get anything that resembles much the neg., and I don't know how they did it then. I really don't know how they did it in WWI, but certainly the film then was of even poorer quality. I doubt any two prints from the same negative under the same controllable conditions really looked the same. Maybe if someone finds a hand-colored photo...?

and that's my $.02

Air Gecko

I only developed film at one period of my life. It was in Korea when I was stationed there. They only had B&W facilities there at the time Used to experiment with length of time in developer to change darkness and lightness of photos. The differences you could get off the same negative was amazing. I believe I still have examples-----somewhere!!
Regards,
Steve

[Darryl]

Hi Ira,

In addition to Steve's trick, I did a project once where I played around with the processing time for the print as well. I successfully demonstrated that between the processing of the negative and the print you could use differing times for each and still end up with a similar looking print (within limits of course).This took an enormous amount of trial and error!!
It follows that even minute variations in exposure, time, light between two negatives ..and differences in print exposure and developing time (and paper type) can give totally different results.

Anyone who has pulled stills out of a video or 8mm will tell you that subtle, perhaps 'unseen' lighting changes between frames also create wild differences.

I love photo interpretation on a "what's THAT and what size is it" basis, but I wouldn't even try my hand at colours from B&W.

regards

Darryl

[Darryl]

>but I wouldn't even try my hand at colours from >B&W.

I should clarify.. NOT saying that someone else couldn't..just that I wouldn't.

regards

Darryl

Thanks so much for this thread. As one interested
in the historical color(s), this is helpful. My
own experience in uniform coloring (and color
photos of the actual uniform) I concur that the
lighting can have dramatic differences on our
perception of that color--not to mention the
affect of outdoor conditions over time.