Speaking in Color

Photography started in Black and White, and pretty much remained in black and white for more than a century: the classic look of a serious art. Around the mid-seventies though, color started to appear on film, sometimes by choice sometimes by experimentation, signaling a new era for the media. It added a new layer of information to that masculine 20^th century feel that people so much had gotten used to. Certainly such change was bound to create controversy that was not in favor of color in its early beginning. But then, in 1971, William Eggleston's Tricycle, with its rusted, red handlebars, its wonderful blue toned seat, and the chromatic play of the white rims existed by itself, for itself, through itself. It stands exalted. Color is not an afterthought here. Forty years later and although tricycles still have 3 wheels, the spectrum of light has Photoshop. It is the digital darkroom, the place where color can be more than what it is in reality. Controversial but required in this digital age, sublime yet vulgar sometimes, image processing for photography has undoubtedly created a new art media, and that’s a good thing right?

The Photo: This is taken in an urban area.It’s really cropped so that all the buildings have been left out. It’s  a small part of a larger image, and this is what made the most sense within the photo. The temperature gradient of the colors has been altered to make a more dramatic (?) contrast. Shot with the Tokina 11-16mm [16mm@f8, 1/250sec, iso100]