Sweet Emotion

I began playing the guitar close to thirty years ago, and one of the first things I learned was major and minor chords. It was fascinating to me that with a subtle movement of one or two fingers you could take a major “or happy” chord and turn it into a minor “or sad” chord.

I was recording in my home studio a few days ago and thinking about how this early guitar theory lesson relates to black and white photography. The biggest difference between a major and minor chord is the emotion it evokes. It can make you laugh, cry, hate, love, or just ponder the meaning of life.

The same is true of black and white photography. The major chord is a color photograph, and the minor chord is the black and white. This is not to say that all black and white photography is sad, however, taking a color photograph and desaturating it can evoke a completely different emotion.

The online dictionary defines emotion as “Any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear, etc., and usually accompanied by certain physiological changes, as increased heartbeat or respiration, and often overt manifestation, as crying or shaking.”

So what happens when you take an ordinary color photograph and desaturate it? Let’s find out.

Our first comparison is a beautiful fall country scene with leaves changing colors and the sun shining. It is a very inviting photograph and invokes emotions of peacefulness and warmth.

However, when we remove the color, the image suddenly feels cold, uninviting, and perhaps frightening if you had a bad experience on a similar road on a rainy day or an overcast cold winter evening.

That is the beauty of this comparison and why photography, especially black and white, invoke different emotions. Depending on how you perceive the world, the black and white version may not seem cold, uninviting, or frightening at all. In my case I find it inviting and beautiful, but that is how I am wired; My personality traits if you will.

Let’s take a look at another example.

The photo below is of a ferris wheel at an unknown amusement park. When l look at this photo it takes me back to my childhood days when my friends and I would go to the local amusement park and stand in line for the new roller coaster and eat hot dogs and cotton candy until we were forced to lie down in the grass like a bunch of gluttons.

The desaturated version of this photograph tells a completely different story. Suddenly, I am staring at an abandoned amusement park; No laughter, no cotton candy, no hot dogs. My childhood oasis is now a cold reminder of what once was.

If I took this a step further and tinted the photograph with some yellows and golds, it would give it a slight sepia look much like an old snapshot you might find in your grandparent’s photo collection.

As photographers, we are constantly invoking emotion and breathing life into what may be considered “flat” photograph. As black and white photographers we are taking it a step further and completely changing the viewers perception, and ultimately their emotional response.

Next time you take your work into the various photo editing software, save one photo with minimal desaturation and compare it to the color version. I think you may be surprised by the different emotion you feel, and I guarantee you will adjust the final output differently had you not try the comparison.