Re-name "Black and White Photography"?

Although I know what is meant, I rather deprecate the term ...

A victim:

What most people think is meant:

But true Black and White is:

And Sepia (i.e. not Black and White) is excluded:

I'm thinking that "B&W or Monochrome Photography" includes all of the last three examples ...

Pardon my pedantry, but I think "or" is more grammatical ... for example, an image can not be both B&W and Sepia, whereas "or" in this case is either the one or the other but not both ...

And the same time, B&W is monochrome. Not or.

Are you really proposing that the category Title be "B&W is monochrome" or are you just deliberately obfuscating this thread with a truism?

Hi,

Actually, most of the film emulsions folks called black and white were actually panchromatic and not monochromatic.

The only true black and white film emulsion I can recall was Kodalith. And I can't think of a one that was monochrome but there were likely a few. Just not ones I shot with back in the day.

As to what to call the category, I can't say as I am fussed with calling it anything other than black and white.

Stan

I vote to change it back to… black-and-white photography.
Even though technically speaking, black-and-white photography may be a subgenre of monochrome photography, the inclusion of the additional word monochrome in the forum's title looks far too pretentious to me.

This is a photography forum for ordinary Joes and Janes, not some high·fa·lu·tin' university photography society!
Anyway, thanks for allowing me to dig into my old collection of black-and-white photography magazines... lol

Pardon my pedantry.

In my world, I call a spade a spade but it seems that others might call it a shovel. 😐

@ Arvo I guess that makes it OK then ... 😉

[deleted]

I do not quite understand this thread. As far as I know, in UK, Monochrome photography is the right term, and the US English term is Black and White, or it may be other way around. Literary cross pollination has made Black and White the dominant term.

My key darkroom instruction manual was called "Ilford Monochrome Darkroom Practice" by Jack H. Coote. But Ilford have always written "Black and White Film" on their film boxes.

As the cultural warriors have not exercised themselves with this aspect of photography yet, we can relax, and not bother ourselves with photographic Newspeak.