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> Especially since most people can not relate to black and white videos/photos because they don't have the context required to expand on that thought. Can anyo

> Especially since most people can not relate to black and white videos/photos because they don't have the context required to expand on that thought. Can anyone expand on this sentiment? I’ve heard it expressed, especially around movies, but it’s always been incomprehensible to me. What is it about being black and white that makes it unrelatable?

gadders 6y ago
I thought it was silly as well. But then I bought a copy of The Colour of Time [1]. I don't know why it makes a difference, but it definitely does (at least for me). Obviously, your mileage may vary. [1] https://marinamaral.com/books/the-colour-of-time-a-new-history-of-the-world-1850-1960/ https://marinamaral.com/books/the-colour-of-time-a-new-histo...
rootsudo 6y ago
Look at old photos, and then take a current photo, something you understand and make it black and white, and resize it. You'll immediately will understand how your senses help "add" thought, context, feelings, emotion behind it. It can be anything, a road w/ houses, a car, a portrait of a person at a famous sight. That. That's the sentiment.
NikolaeVarius 6y ago
I struggle to believe that the Afghan girl picture would have been anywhere near as popular as it was/is if it was B&W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl
- prionassembly 6y ago
  But this is because of strange racial issues. Americans expect "Muslims" to all be uniformly brown (I remember circa 9/11 the slur "sand n#$%r" was common) , but Afghans and Iranians have whiter skin and often eyes that are not black. And then we decode that as "this is beauty and it's surprising that there is beauty among these people".
arp242 6y ago
When all the images you see from a certain time period are captured in a certain way (black and white, in this case) then it's easy to imagine that this is also how the people at the time perceived it, which of course isn't the case at all. I wouldn't call it "unrelatable" as such, but adding colour – even if not completely accurate – certainly gives me a better impression of how people at the time saw things, and it becomes more relatable. Black and white can certainly be used for fantastic artistic intent in e.g. movies, by the way. But for these kind of historical records that's not what was going on; it was just a technological limitation at the time.

gadders 6y ago

I thought it was silly as well. But then I bought a copy of The Colour of Time [1]. I don't know why it makes a difference, but it definitely does (at least for me). Obviously, your mileage may vary. [1] https://marinamaral.com/books/the-colour-of-time-a-new-history-of-the-world-1850-1960/ https://marinamaral.com/books/the-colour-of-time-a-new-histo...

rootsudo 6y ago

Look at old photos, and then take a current photo, something you understand and make it black and white, and resize it. You'll immediately will understand how your senses help "add" thought, context, feelings, emotion behind it. It can be anything, a road w/ houses, a car, a portrait of a person at a famous sight. That. That's the sentiment.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago

I struggle to believe that the Afghan girl picture would have been anywhere near as popular as it was/is if it was B&W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl

prionassembly 6y ago
But this is because of strange racial issues. Americans expect "Muslims" to all be uniformly brown (I remember circa 9/11 the slur "sand n#$%r" was common) , but Afghans and Iranians have whiter skin and often eyes that are not black. And then we decode that as "this is beauty and it's surprising that there is beauty among these people".

arp242 6y ago

When all the images you see from a certain time period are captured in a certain way (black and white, in this case) then it's easy to imagine that this is also how the people at the time perceived it, which of course isn't the case at all. I wouldn't call it "unrelatable" as such, but adding colour – even if not completely accurate – certainly gives me a better impression of how people at the time saw things, and it becomes more relatable. Black and white can certainly be used for fantastic artistic intent in e.g. movies, by the way. But for these kind of historical records that's not what was going on; it was just a technological limitation at the time.