Lens-Artists Challenge #390: Colour in Black and White

Lens-Artists Challenge #390: Colour in Black and White

I've not been participating in the Lens-Artists Challenge just lately. Partly because since the beginning of the year the weather has been hugely disappointing (the sky has certainly been shades of black and white), but mainly because I've been trying to concentrate on personal projects like circuit bending cameras, fun with failing sensors, and testing out an ever increasing collection of cameras that somehow magically appear on the doorstep. 

But to paraphrase Michael Corleone in the Godfather: 'Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!' Which is exactly what Egídio has done with his wonderful theme this week. Our hosts theme is seeing 'Color in Black and White'. (https://throughbrazilianeyes.com/lens-artists-challenge-390-color-in-black-and-white/) What Egídio is suggesting is that a lack of colour in an image, 'forces us to look beyond the surface, to engage with form, texture, and light on a fundamental level'. His idea is that: 'Even when a scene is presented entirely in shades of gray, our brains—conditioned by a lifetime of experience—can effortlessly “see” the familiar hues we expect. We project our own 'colour memories' onto the image.

Of course, I'm not going to do that. Instead of us projecting our own colour memories onto an image, like Egídio's view of the rainbow or the stars and stripes parachutist, I'm going the let black and white images tell us what colours they want to be seen in. Yes, it's time for trouble with trichromes. Making trichromes is one of my favourite techniques, and whenever I get a new camera one of the first things I try and test is making a trichrome (or an infrared trichrome, my 'digital aerochrome').

It's actually really easy to make trichromes. All you need is a camera that can be set to monochrome mode (or one loaded with black and white film), a tripod, and red, green and blue filters. You don't even need the tripod, although it makes lining up the images later that much easier (and I'm as lazy as they come). Mount the camera on the tripod, set the camera mode to black and white,  choose your subject, then take three photos: one with the red filter over the lens, one with the green filter, and one with the blue filter. 

Then, back home in the warm, combine the three images in a photo editor in red, green, and blue layers, and with a bit of PhotoShop magic you end up with a colour image. I posted my method of making trichromes here (https://keithdevereux.wordpress.com/2023/10/16/the-joy-of-trichromes-with-the-nintendo-gameboy/). It was written with the Gameboy in mind, but the method is applicable to any camera. Of course, where the fun really begins is when there is movement between the red, green and blue frames, and in this case you can get a wonderful kaleidoscope of colour that has no bearing on the original image.

So what I've done is taken a 'walk around the block' to the fields behind our house and tried making monochrome images of the trees, plants, and the woods with different techniques. With a little intentional camera movement (ICM), and the Vortoscope, I've tried to introduce a little movement between the frames, so when they're combined in the photo editor, your colour memory of the original subject is confused by the colours within the trichrome image. If you're interested, I’ve posted the whole series in an album on my Joomeo (https://public.joomeo.com/albums/69c3a4c52abec) if you want to see the rest of the images. 

To finish off, I thought I'd have a little bit of fun with the Gameboy. I've just received a new (to me) Gameboy Camera cartridge that needs testing, so here are the first few images from that cartridge. The Gameboy camera has a resolution of 0.014MP and four shades of grey, so when you're deciphering such images, your colour—and object—memories are really put to the test. I hope that you've enjoyed this little detour, and apologies to Egídio for 'going rogue' on the subject this week.

Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the following week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here (https://photobyjohnbo.com/about-lens-artists/), and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag 'Lens-Artists'.

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#ColourInBlackAndWhite, #LensArtists, Lens-Artists, #Challenge, #Abstract, #Exposure, #Trichrome, #Effect, #Motion, #Blur,