Fashion Lifestyle and Travel @ Kent Johnson Photography: Photographing Vivid Sydney 2015

Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Photographing Vivid Sydney 2015 - Like it was 1985!

Looking through my first series shots that I made of the coloured light sculptures and projections at the 2015 edition of Vivid Sydney on Tuesday night a question occurred to me; what would these pictures look like if I had taken them back in 1985? I knew the answer immediately; Black and White! I would have gone to a coloured light show with my Nikon FM and I would have almost certainly photographed in Black and White. There are a couple of reasons for this. First and most importantly I love black and white! And back in 1985 I was obsessed with black and white photography as an art form and a complete way of seeing and revealing the world around me. The other reason is that colour film and processing was expensive! Really expensive if you were shooting professional transparency/slide film. Which is exactly what I would have used if I wanted colour pictures.

Selfies, Arclight by Artists: Studio Workshop (Chris Knapp (Australia) / Jonathan Nelson (Australia)) + Matsys (Andrew Kudless (USA)). Vivid Sydney in black and white photography

Of course too much colour can overpower a picture, muddy a scene, create clashes that detract. Very good black and white and very good colour photography are both difficult to achieve; but as most of us do like pretty colours.. I am still of the opinion that it is easier to make a passable colour picture than a passable one in black and white. Oh, and don't forget the iso issue, HP5 or TriX film was 400iso! Push it as far as you dare for soft pictures and golf ball sized grain. These pictures were all made with the Fujifilm X-Pro1 the XF18mmF2 R and tiny EF-X20 flash unit.

So here they are; all the colours of Vivid Sydney in glorious Black and White! Enjoy.