Old pictures

[orinoco]

The last weeks there are lots of old pictures on the site should there be a new categorie for this ? so new picture are new pictures.

[pieter melissen]

what defines "old"? A shot taken a year ago, five years or 15 years ago?

[orinoco]

All the old black and white pictures.

[pieter melissen]

All the old black and white pictures.

they would come in the age categories as specified, modern B&W pictures are not allowed.

[Allan RO]

Why not ?

[pieter melissen]

Why not ?

can't answer that, did not make the site rules, but I assume that the makers overlooked the existence of a modern digital Leica camera that only produces B&W shots.

[davidships]

The reason is simple.  The underlying principle is that, subject to technological limitations, the image should look natural, as seen by the average human.  B&W photos do not, and the digi ones that are occasionally posted are usually presented for artistic purposes.

Those Leica cameras have indeed been mentioned before, but I very much doubt that any member of Shipspotting would have one as their sole camera.

[shipcam]

You are going to upset a lot of pre-digital photographers by saying that B&W photos don't look natural to the eye. B&W was the only format available or affordable for many photographers for decades and decades and form the basis of numerous photo collections of immense historical value. What about all those pin sharp glass plate B&W photos from the turn of the century, are they unnatural to the eye too....you really are off course on that one in my opinion anyway. You could better describe it by not permitting digitals to be colourised or tampered with to give them "unnatural to the eye" colours, don't pick on the historic B&W's, the very foundation of shipping photography. Very strange rule that.

[Tuomas Romu]

I, for one, fully understand the ban on modern black-and-white photographs on a website like Shipspotting.com. At this day and age, shooting black-and-white film or using one of those very few monochrome digital cameras is a conscious choice for purely artistic purposes rather than a matter of availability or affordability like in the past. I'm also fairly sure that even during the age of black-and-white film most shipspotters would have preferred color negatives or slides over black-and-white film.

However, if you happened to capture a once-in-a-lifetime ship photograph with your monochrome Leica digital rangefinder, I'm sure the admins would make an exception...

[simonwp]

I, for one, fully understand the ban on modern black-and-white photographs on a website like Shipspotting.com. At this day and age, shooting black-and-white film or using one of those very few monochrome digital cameras is a conscious choice for purely artistic purposes rather than a matter of availability or affordability like in the past. I'm also fairly sure that even during the age of black-and-white film most shipspotters would have preferred color negatives or slides over black-and-white film.

However, if you happened to capture a once-in-a-lifetime ship photograph with your monochrome Leica digital rangefinder, I'm sure the admins would make an exception...

I started serious ship photography in the late 1960's, up to about 1975 all were in black and white. After that I was able to afford two camera's, and took colour prints and slides. Some of the black and white one's would certainly be good enough for this site in all other respects, but I haven't posted them as I thought they would be deleted. So I have a bit of sympathy with this viewpoint. It's a difficult one to know which is the right approach.

Also members, such as DDG Hansa regularly post old B&W photographs they have taken, without any issues or comment, so presumably such photographs ARE acceptable on this site.

[Allan RO]

OK - so how OLD is OLD?   What is the definition or cut-off point for b&w photos ?   

[davidships]

I will try again to be clear.
This is based on the site's intention to present good quality images, taking account of the types and capabilities of cameras generally available to the average ship enthusiast at the time.

Subject to site standards generally, B&W images are perfectly acceptable where that was the original medium (usually roll-film) from the era before the mass adoption of colour photography.  So far as I know, this has been unchanged site policy for a long time, if not since the beginning.

There can be no particular cut-off point, as the transitions from B&W to Colour, and from roll-film and/or slides to digi will have been different for each member. Members are expected to use common-sense and to refrain from trying to "game the system".

The expectation is that members will aim present the most natural results available from their resources.  "Natural" here means generally "as perceived by natural eye" - it is nothing do with what is "pleasing to the eye".  Nobody is picking on old B&W photos, it just happens to be the subject raised in the first place.

[pieter melissen]

Concluding: The original question was: Should B&W pictures be in a separate category, and the answer clearly is: NO, photos taken in B&W in period of a ship come in the same category as color photos taken of that same ship. After all both type of pictures of that ship will be sorted according to the same IMO number.