B+W: The New Color?

Confrontation With The Monster We’ve Collectively Created by Colin Blakely

An inability to clone myself (damnit!) meant that I missed last night’s panel at Aperture, The New Color: The Return of Black and White. I’m sorry to have missed it, but it was for good cause: the Hey, Hot Shot! opening was rad, and the pizza party after was big fun too. (Lombardi’s anyone? Yes, please.) Fortunately, Lesley Martin came by for the tail end of the pizza party, determined to meet a few of the Hot Shots in spite of her busy schedule. She and I then ambled around the corner to Peasant for some post-panel dish over a glass of Prosecco. It was almost as good as being there, but not quite.

Rain Celebration by Alison Grippo

Lucky for us, panel moderator/organizer Charlotte Cotton’s website, Tip of The Tongue promises to continue the conversation. In the first (and for now only) essay on the site she writes:

I am sure I’m not alone in beginning to think that the more complex, messy, unfashionable, and broad territory of black-and-white photography is where we are going to find some of the grist to the mill in photography’s substantive and longer-term positioning within art.

Untitled by Benjamin Donaldson

I myself have had B+W on the brain lately too. I’ve been seeing (and looking for) more B+W entries to HHS! This round includes Colin Blakely. We’ve previously featured Joe Fornabaio’s work and jb artist (and Hot Shot ultra) Alison Grippo shows B+W almost exclusively. The upcoming and aforementioned Ben Donaldson portrait exhibition includes several B+W portraits and it’s nothing new for him - he’s done loads of B+W work all along.

I love me some color work, always and forever, but lately there’s something new in the old - is it nostalgia? Perhaps. But not only… there’s something else afoot. The fact that B+W isn’t an exact replica of our over-saturated reality is something of a respite from the plexi-mounted verite of much contemporary color. And also, I’ve always been fond of smaller prints. PhotoLA was sensory overload at every turn; ultimately I most enjoyed looking at the vintage prints and my lone purchase was a charming, slim volume from Nazraeli, Julius Shulman’s Vest Pocket Pictures.