Not known by many people, but a few of us who are old (I am 75) can cite the accuracy of this essay 6 Ways to Take Better Black and White Photographs. Our writer uses the term monochrome. But the term is not entirely right. Let me explain. In the 19th century until the halftone process was invented in the late 1870s the only way to reproduce a photograph was something called the photogravure. It was much too expensive and problematic to use the method to print in newspapers. This is why all of the US Civil War photographs were converted to lithographs before they were inserted in newspapers.
The halftone process uses dots from black to near white. If you look in old newspapers and magazines with a loupe you will be able to see those dots. In colour photographs of contemporary newspapers you will find those dots again. The method used for reproduction is a variation of the halftone.
In the mid 80s there was a revolutionary event in the printing of books and good magazines. With the use of scanners and other devices photographs in these books and magazines were printed in four-colour. Suddenly colour photographs in these periodicals and books were sharper, more detailed and the colour was accurate.
But (and here I cite an exciting but!!) I purchased in 1990 a used and in very good condition Photodiscovery — Masterworks of Photography 184–1940 by Bruce Bernard (published in 1980! by Harry N. Abrams Incorporated). The surprise is that many of the photographs I had seen before were now printed four colour. None were in strict b+w until the advent of the 20th century. The ones in the 19th were rich in all kinds of monochromes.
And some had more than one colour part of the process of toning. In more recent times, at the almost end of the 20th century when I toned properly washed Agfa Portriga Photographic Paper in very stong Kodak Selenium Toner I got what was commonly called split toning. These “b+w” photographs had warm sepias and cold cyans.
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward — Vancouver BC
