Michael Kenna - Black & White vs Color Photography

Why Black & White?

Having my studio at The Torpedo Factory Art Center in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia for the past 14 years has provided a unique public venue for my work. One of the questions I am frequently asked is "why black & white and not color?" As most people know, I only work in black & white and have never been interested in working in color ... but why?       

 In a recent article published Black & White Magazine, British landscape photographer, Michael Kenna, known for his exquisite black & white images, was posed the question, "why black & white and not color?" For those not familiar with his work, Kenna works exclusively in black & white and makes his prints in the traditional wet darkroom. In an age when digital imaging allows for prints in enormous sizes, Kenna prints in only one size, roughly 8" x 8" ... and they are spectacular! His work is shown in museums and galleries around the world.

For me personally, his response as to why he works in monochrome vs color sums it up perfectly...

"Kenna’s old school outlook extends to his fidelity to black and white. Despite four decades of shooting in monochrome, he has no desire to experiment with color. Black and white, for him, provides an immediate interpretation of the world rather than a literal copy of what we see, where everything is in color. He finds black-and-white photographs to be quieter, subtler and more mysterious than those made in color, and thus more inspiring to the imagination of the individual viewer. Paradoxically, because they don’t attempt to compete with the outside world, black-and-white images persists longer in our visual memory. "

An Art Survey

Jay Leno, Bill Mahr and CNN have all at one time or another conducted surveys out in the street of typical Americans. They ask to name the Secretary of State, Vice President or the Governor of their home state. Much to my amazement, the vast majority of people surveyed don't have a clue ... AMAZING!

As most of the visitors to my Blog are aware, I have been a resident artist at The Torpedo Factory Art Center in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia since 2001. We are a 76,000 square foot art center on the Potomac River right across from Washington, D.C. We are the major draw to historic Old Town Alexandria. We attract nearly 500,000 visitors from all over the U.S. and throughout the world.  I suppose it is safe to say that we are THE premiere art center in the U.S. and maybe worldwide.

Over the past few weeks I have been doing a little survey on my own. On a typical week I probably attract 100-150 individuals. I have been asking if they could name 5 famous photographers and or 5 famous artists ... sculptors, painters, etc. Out of nearly 100 very informal surveys, the predominate answer for "famous photographers" was Ansel Adams. Maybe 10% of the people knew specific photos, but not the name of the photographer. Maybe 50% knew of Annie Leibovitz. Names like Edward Weston, Richard Avedon, Sebastião Salgado, Keith Carter or Michael Kenna drew blanks. In fact, many visitors to my studio carry expensive cameras and claim to be photographers!

When it came to naming "famous artists," the overwhelming majority answered, Picasso, Van Gogh, DaVinci, Renoir, Rubens and Rembrandt. Most never heard of Willem de Kooning, Chuck Close, Richard Diebenkorn or Jackson Pollack or Damien Hirst for that matter.

What does this say about the public's knowledge of art? Do we only care about the Kim Kardashian, Beyonce and Duck Dynasty ... I guess so!   

Is Bigger Better?

I've noticed in the past few years that prints have been getting much larger. Some are framed, while others are mounted on aluminum or face-mounted to plexi-glass. This is true for color as well as B/W prints.

What has happened to the intimacy between the viewer and the image? Most contemporary photography is printed large 30" x 40" and 40" x 60."

The only exception I can think of is the work of contemporary landscape photographer, Michael

Kenna. By today's standards, Kenna's prints are relatively small; approximately 7.5" x 7.5" gelatin silver prints matted 16" x 20" printed in editions of 45 ... postage stamps in comparison to the works of Andreas Gursky, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Edward Burtynski.

Kenna was interviewed for "THE PHOTO REVIEW" by Dean Brierly in 1997 for an article titled: "In the Darkroom with Michael Kenna." When asked if he ever prints larger, Kenna's response was, "No. I prefer the intimacy of the smaller print. I experimented with 16" x 20" prints in the late 80s but later destroyed most of them. Some collectors really like them but they just didn't feel right for me. Apart from the more obvious technical and optical considerations, what is more important for me is the relationship that a viewer has with the print. The eye comfortably views and focuses an angle of about 30 degrees. This translates into a viewer comfortably standing about 10 inches away from a 4" x 5" print and 3.5 feet away from a 16" x 20" print. Small prints have a greater feeling of intimacy - one looks into the print. Large prints are more awesome - they are something a viewer looks out at. I believe in fitting the print size to one's particular vision and prefer the more intimate engagement of the smaller image."

It was not so long ago that a 16" x 20" print was considered fairly large. 20" x 24" prints were considered very large. I can recall an instance about 15 years ago, when a client purchased a 40" x 40" print. At the time, due to technological limitations, I had a commercial lab make an 8" x 10" copy negative of a 20" x 20" print so as to enable them to make the large 40" print on roll paper. The original negative could have been enlarged at the lab, but there was so much print manipulation (dodging and burning), that I thought it best to copy a finished print rather than have a stranger try to interpret my negative.

Today is entirely another story ... either capture the image digitally, or capture an image on film, scan the negative and print on a large format ink jet or light jet printer that ranges in size from 17" to 104" in width. What a world!

Bottom line ... In my opinion, the desire to print large-scale is driven by the fact photographers now have a technology that has expanded his or her creative vision in ways unthinkable 10 years ago. Some imagery just looks better at 30" x 40" than it does at 16" x 20." We have essentially moved away from the so called "intimate" relationship we had with an image to one of an in-your-face life-like visual experience. It's sort of like going from pager technology to IPhone 4 technology over night!

When Dean Brierly asked Michael Kenna if the pendulum is swinging back towards smaller prints, Kenna says, "I honestly don't follow the photography world enough to know what is going on. But as you say, it is predictable that if big prints have become popular, there will be a pendulum swing away from them. As there are always dedicated followers of fashion, we also know the grass is always greener on the other side." Keep in mind this interview was in 1997 ... almost at the very beginning of photography's digital revolution.