In this workshop we will look at the basic method used in the 'automatic recording and reproduction' of color.


By doing that, we will defamiliarize what we take for granted and insert ourselves into the process (that is usually a black box to us) that mediate between the world and a technically produced image.


What is expected for this exercise

1. Part 1: take three black and white photographs one with red, one with green, and one with blue filters. Combine them to recreate a color photograph to understand how media deals with color
   
   
2. Part 2: explore. For example,
   • the possibility of this techinque to make a compelling artistic image
   • research/demonstrate other ways media creates color (eg. temporal mixing?)
   • other related topics (see below for more ideas)

imgage from https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/item/2018680327/

Black and white image captures intensity of the light. Most media technolgy relies on this idea

Combining three b/w photographs

"The first color photograph made by the three-color method suggested by James Clerk Maxwell in 1855, taken in 1861 by Thomas Sutton. The subject is a colored ribbon, usually described as a tartan ribbon."



Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky's work in color photography


Each b/w image was taken with a colored filter (red, green, and blue)


Prokudin-Gorskii Collection

• General view of the Church of the Transfiguration. Pidma. [Russian Empire]
• Cornflowers in a field of rye. [Russian Empire]
• Peasant girls. [Russian Empire]
• Mountain ash
• View from the rear platform of the Simskaia Station of the Samara-Zlatoust Railway
• On the Registan. Samarkand
• Emir of Bukhara. Bukhara
• Kebab restaurant. Samarkand

I suggest you use a tripod!! or securing your camera against a wall/table


Set the camera to take photos in black and white. You MUST be able to take b/w photographs.


• Use black and white film. Will take a lot of time. (3 - 4 weeks worth of photo class required)
  
  
• Use digital camera
  
  
  • Set the camera to take photos in jpeg. You'll get color photographs if you ask for RAW files
    
    
  • Set the camera to shoot in B/W (Monochrome)
    
    
    • Nikon D7000 & D7100 -> Menu -> Camera Icon -> Set Picture Control -> Monochrome
    • Fuji XT-3 -> Menu -> IQ -> Film Simulation -> B (Monochrome)
    • (older) iPhone
      
      
    • (newwer) iPhone
      
      





Take three b/w photographs with filters in front of the lens.

(If you know exposures and know how to use a manual camera, try to get a reading with one of the filters and keep the settings for aperture/shutter speed the same. Otherwise auto-exposure should work ok.)


• Take a b/w photograph with red filter over the lens
  
  Q: what does the red filter do? Look at the red rose.
  
  
  
• Take a b/w photograph with green filter over the lens
  
  Q: what does the green filter do? Look at the leaves of the rose.
  
  
  
• Take a b/w photograph with blue filter over the lens
  
  Q: why is the cable always white?
  
  Make sure you name the files so that you know which one is taken with the red, green, and blue filter
  
  



Completed image:





"An unrendered color photo would appear pale, almost ghostly - nothing like normal human vision because it represents only what is captured by the sensitivities of the image-capturing device, rather than the perceptions formed by human sight" (Lehmann from Color Goes Electric)

By using an unrenderd photo, it will allow us to color correct/grade without the influence of rendering that already takes into account things such as memory color (red of tomato, green of grass), preferences of people (tan of skin) and physiological effects of perception (white paper under yellow light).




From Color Goes Electric by Claire Lehmann:



This image is the property of Eastman Kodak Co. or its successors.





Roe Ethridge. Thanksgiving 1984. 2009

• It's interesting when it fails?
  • Time/Movement: when things move between shots, motion rendered colorfully
  
  
• Aesthetic exploration
  • Past student work
  • Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky [photographs][exhibition main][making]
  • Florian Maier-Aichen [article]
  • James Welling's hexachromes
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    • twitter conversation
      " take a series of time lapse photos, colour each one with a different hue using colours from the spectrum of light, then recombine them. The colour of each pixel depends on how its brightness changed over time."
      
      "James Welling did the same thing in his 'Hexachromes' series from 2006. He used the passage of time and gels to reveal a spectrum of colors. Florian Maier Aichen (Welling's student) also uses the same technique in many of his photographs."
      
      
  
  
• What if you critically compare the photos you get in color (jpg, or RAW) with the real world.
  
  
• What if you focus on the idea of memory colors to create an image that is more true to your personal memory?
  
  
• Think about the process of technically reproducing color. How is it different than prior creation of color?
  
  
• The color you get is in some way very unprocessed/unmediated. You get access to stages before it becomes consumed as color. You also get access to what color technology was like before it was standardized.
  
  
  • Create your own reference photographs (preferences, taste, politics, race)
  • Create color photos that represent colors from 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s
  • Research and report on rendering errors and more contemporary examples (Smart/iPhones seem to fail in interesting ways in Portrait mode or night mode).
  
  
• Colorizing b/w photos using machine learning.
  
  • Photoshop or many other machine learning based tools may have a colorization model ready to use
    
    
    You can try it yourself. You can also research and think through the problems and present us your research. Think critically! What color photographs are they trained on? What are the implications? Can you turn that critical observation into a work of art that reveals that mechanism?
  
  
  
  
  
• FYI. You can get FITS raw images from the Hubble space telescope from different color spectrum and following the instructions, color the images