28-JAN-2005
Bargaining, Salavan Province, Laos, 2005
These women are weavers. They are in the midst of a long bargaining session as they try to sell their products to visitors. I originally photographed them in color, but changed the image to black and white in order to strengthen the solemnity of the moment and the intensity of feeling they bring to it.
The color version is more real and more beautiful. The skin tones are lovely, the light warm. The more abstract black and white reproduction makes it more journalistic in nature. The beauty and warmth is gone, replaced by unvarnished intensity of thought. The softly focused woman in the background, who has been wearing red, now fades into the woodwork, a presence, but no longer an entity. The woman in focus is left to make a hard decision. When does she accept the amount that is being offered?
22-JAN-2005
Road Laborer, Luang Prabang, Laos, 2005
She is part of a team of young girls working on a road repair gang. I photographed her while she rested, incongruously wearing a Laotian version of a LA Dodger baseball cap. She had been shoveling loads of stones. Several hours later, she was still at it. The work is hard, the pay low, but she has a job.
When comparing the two images, you will see a striking difference in meaning. The color version is more of a travel image. This black and white version is more of a journalistic or documentary photo. While she is in the shade, there are golden highlights created by the warm afternoon light coming through the trees in the color version. They are gone in this black and white rendition. This more abstract monochromatic image also downplays the emphasis on the colorful skirt she wears in the color version. She seems to be a kid at rest on a rock pile in the color photograph, while in this black and white image she becomes a symbol of child labor in a developing country. While somewhat less real in form, the picture becomes a more universal expression of a social issue when the colors are removed and only the rocks and the young worker remain.
26-JAN-2005
Wood Carriers, Salavan Province, Laos, 2005
Women carrying huge baskets of wood walk the hills of Southern Laos at dawn. Once again, the color and black and white versions of this image have different stories to tell.
This black and white conversion removes the warm early morning light that made the color image quite attractive. We see what the scene would have looked like if we had seen it with our own eyes. It is no longer as attractive an image in black and white. Replacing its natural reality is the harder reality of life itself in this part of the world. People carry these huge baskets of heavy sticks on their back in order to survive. This is what they will cook their food with, and they must find it and walk many miles with it strapped to their backs. Once again, a travel image becomes an example of travel photojournalism, expressing its idea in a different form and for a different purpose.
25-JAN-2005
Child with Offerings, Vientiane, Laos, 2005
Both versions of this image are essentially portraits. Both have the same neutral background, the whitewashed wall of the temple. The color portrait is more real. The black and white abstraction is less real but it takes you more deeply into the subject. The color version buffers her plight with the warmth of her complexion, and the multi colored dried plants she is holding. The abstracted black and white version, on the other hand, makes a more direct impact on our imagination. She seems more vulnerable once her color “cover” has been removed. By removing the symbolic warmth of the color in the flowers, they become essentially dead sticks in black and white. By removing the reality of the child’s skin and clothing colors, and presenting my viewer with a monochromatic image, I’ve once again raised questions involving a social issue – child labor – rather than just making an attractive portrait of a young child holding an attractive floral offering.
Both images function effectively. It comes down to a choice based on the purpose of the picture. Travel photo or documentary image? Take your choice.
25-JAN-2005
Chicken Seller, Morning Market, Vientiane, Laos, 2005
This lady had the biggest selection of chickens in the market. She impassively swept a small mop from side to side -- keeping the flies away. The greatest strength of this image is its incongruity, at least to a Western viewer. To those of us not used to seeing a table full of dead chickens with feet up in the air being serenaded by lady with a feather duster,
this image might come as a shock to the senses.
You can see the color version of this image in a travel article I posted on my Laos trip at:
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/139137/photo61.html . It is an excellent travel picture. It’s an exotic image that conveys a sense of place very well in terms of its reality. Its colors are part of that reality. The yellow chickens, her pink duster (and matching pink shirt), and the many colors of a busy market behind her, all work to give the viewer a good sense of this chaotic Laotian market scene.
Now abstract all of that by converting it to black and white. The yellow color that gave these chickens their immediate identity vanishes and they chickens essentially become creatures. The colors of the marketplace behind this lady no longer compete for our attention. We become fixated on those dead birds that ask us a big question – what is going on here? We must study it a bit more closely to find out. And that is what abstraction does so well. It asks questions and demands answers of the viewer. This becomes a more personal image in black and white, more challenging to the imagination, and considerably more incongruous as well.
Whether or not we convert this image from color to black and white is not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad. It depends upon how we want to use the picture and what we want to say to our viewers. I feel this shot worked very well in color in my travel article on worldisround.com. But if I wanted to make my viewers think, wonder, and feel – black and white would be my choice here.
22-JAN-2005
Onion Vendor, Luang Prabang, Laos, 2005
The colors in this image are quite exotic – a rose colored mat matches the colors in her skirt and shirt, the warmth of the brown earth is picked up in the tan of the baskets, and the green onions make themselves boldly present. You can see it for yourself, posted in my worldisround.com travel article on Laos at:
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/139137/photo106.html .
However, I also think this image functions very well in black and white because it places greater stress on the gracious body language of the vendor herself. There is no color to compete with her gesture of acknowledgement. She is, in essence, spontaneously and incongruously posing for us! She does so by leaning back, throwing her arm up, and running her hand through her hair. Just like those glamorous movie stars of the 1940s and 50 used to do. She never said a word to me. Yet she radiated warmth and pride.
I posted this image in color in my travel article because I was using it as expressive travel photography. And it worked very well. The gesture is still there, and so, are the warm, vivid colors that give her identity as a seller of onions in a marketplace. Without the colors, the image becomes something altogether different. An abstract, incongruously humane portrait of a Laotian market vendor posing as an archaic movie star would have posed 50 years ago. Once again, it is not a matter of asking which picture is “best.” Each of them tell a different story, and in a different way.
03-FEB-2005
Lacquerware worker, Mandalay, Myanmar, 2005
Stops at craft shops and factories rarely produce expressive photographs for me, but this busy fellow at work in a lacquerware shop proved to be an exception. By using a slow shutter speed, I was able to blur his hands, arms and machine to create the illusion of a hectic pace, a sharp contrast to his matter of fact expression. I posted this picture in color in my Myanmar travel article posted on worldisround.com at:
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/139134/photo70.html
You will note that the color brings an edge of reality to it that works quite well. The warmth of the woven matte on the wall behind him complements the color of his skin, and his blue sarong identifies him as Burmese. It makes an effective expressive travel image.
This black and white version neutralizes the advantages of the color image. Instead, it presents an array of its own advantages. The abstracted black and white image allows the machine to seem to move even faster because it now has less to compete with it.
The black and white image is all about the blur, the invisible arm that is moving too fast to photograph, and his casual expression. It now has nothing at all to do with complexion or wall materials, or national dress. He now shows us that he does what he does so well that he need not even look at what he is doing. All of this was present in the color version as well, but it blended into the reality of the scene itself as documented by the presence of color. Take the color out and the image accelerates before our very eyes!
27-JAN-2005
Husking Rice, Salavan Province, Laos, 2005
Rice is the most important crop in rural Laos. The husking process --using a wooden mortar and pestle -- is brutally physical. The husks are smashed with an enormously heavy pole. The toll it takes on both body and spirit is evident in this portrait of a rice husker.
In color, this portrait tells its story through reality. In black and white, it tells its story symbolically. Abstraction leads to symbolization, and that is what happens in this case.
She is very tired. We all would be exhausted after lifting that huge wooden mallet over our heads time and time again. Yet she stands in a warm environment. The colors are often warm and quite real. The reds and browns of her home, the earth upon which she stands, her colorful skirt, her enormous mallet, complement her tanned complexion. All of these colors share equal billing with her torn shirt, her somewhat impatient body language, and her solemn expression.
In the black and white version, the body language, expression, and torn shirt take over. Everything else becomes context for them. It is a more poignant image, expressively journalistic in nature rather than an example of expressive travel photography. Each version tells its story well, but differently.
21-JAN-2005
Woman with Ladle, Luang Prabang, Laos, 2005
Luang Prabang is a place that lives in the past as well as the present. This woman, poised with her ladle over a serving table at a street-side restaurant, may just as well have been standing here with ladle in hand 100 years ago.
I placed this woman within three frames simultaneously – the frame of the camera itself, the frame of the doorway, and the frame created by the awning overhead and the low wall in front of her restaurant. It was, I felt, like looking at her through a time tunnel. That was the point of my image. Many of the contemporary plastic food containers piled on the tables in front of her are in vivid colors. Even her red ladle is plastic. I thought these colors, with their evocation of the present, contrasted nicely to her timeless doorway pose. (You can see all of these colors by viewing this same image in its original form as posted in my travel article on Laos at:
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/139137/photo32.html )
When I converted this photograph to black and white, that contrast vanished. The contemporary food containers are still there in black and white but are not emphasized. Because she stands by herself within the black entry to the restaurant, she is emphasized, and so is her timeless pose. I thought this black and white version was more of a trip through a time tunnel. Yes, all the plastics are still there, and so is the electrical equipment on the wall. But in black and white, everything now revolves around the woman with the ladle and her timeless duties as a preparer of meals.
01-FEB-2005
Curious Monk, Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar, 2005
A Buddhist monk enjoys a surprise while studying the spires of Shwedagon through a powerful telescope. The famed Burmese pagoda is plated with over 8,000 solid gold slabs and topped by an orb studded with 5,000 diamonds. No wonder this fellow seems stunned! He was just as surprised in living color, but the vivid hues of his maroon robe and the yellow building in the background definitely shared equal billing with that surprise. I abstract the picture by converting it to black and white, shifting the emphasis to the monk’s astonished expression. By carefully leaving a thin ribbon of negative space between his mouth and thumb, and his nose and telescope, I add tension that brings more energy into his amazed response. I give the viewer less information, leave more to the imagination, and convey my story in a more universal manner.
01-FEB-2005
Exit, Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar, 2005
Late afternoon visitors depart from Shwedagon's massive lobby. Thousands visit the huge temple complex from morning to night every day. The original color image, bathed in golden evening light, is strikingly beautiful, and made a perfect picture to end my sequence on a visit to Shwedagon in my Myanmar Travel article on Worldisround.com. You can view it at:
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/139134/photo13.html
The basic concept of the image itself is to show less and say more by using backlighted underexposure to create an abstraction. The color version places all of these people, including the lone child who seems somewhat lost at the bottom, into a context of golden warmth. Visitors generally feel spiritually fulfilled after a visit to this incredibly beautiful gathering of Buddhist temples, and the color version fits that mood well.
This black and white version, on the other hand, is not as beautiful as that color image. But in some ways it may involve the imagination of the viewer to a greater degree. Without the golden light reflecting off the tiles, we are free to focus primarily on the varying forms. All of them, except the child, are wearing the sarongs that are the Burmese national costume for both men and women. In the color version, the child is an incidental afterthought. In the black and white version, however, the child becomes more of an issue. Is he lost? Why doesn’t anyone help him? What will happen to him? The image, which formerly was an exercise in symbolic mood, now asks questions and demands answers of the viewer. It is now a double abstraction, both in terms of the use of light and the use of color (or no color.) Rather than a just a good picture to use to end a sequence in a travel article, it now can stand alone as an expressive image that can trigger thoughts in the imagination of the viewer.
Pot Carriers at Rest, Mandalay, Myanmar, 2005
In Myanmar, it is the women who seem to bear the greatest physical burdens. These women have been carrying a basket full of huge pots on their heads for several miles. We saw them stop to rest, and I made this image of them as they took a well-earned breather.
In color, the image speaks of reality. The pots are stressed – the tan color of pottery dominates the image. You can even see the streaks of Thanaka on their faces – a yellow makeup paste that Burmese women wear to soften the skin and block the sun. This makes the image quite specific in terms of both task and place.
In black and white, however, we get more depth of feeling into the image. That’s because the picture is less real and more abstract. The Thanaka and the brown pottery take second billing to the weary expressions, and the exhausted hand gesture of the woman in the plaid shirt. In the color shot, her red sarong was a startling distraction, but there was no way to take it out. In black and white, her sarong is becomes a neutral gray.
Each version tells a different story. We choose the story we want to tell in light of our own intentions.