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Tom Johnston's avatar

There has always been an interesting debate about the use of black and white versus color in war photography and other violent and culturally disturbing subject matters. Proponents of black and white say black and white focuses you on the immediate brutality without any emotional sentiment except the extreme brutality. Proponents of color say when people see such violence and brutality in the frame of what they see normally (color) provides a shock and immediate revulsion to what is happening in their color universe. Color gives a sense of romanticism which is immediately gone when you realize what you are viewing. Black and white will not give you the contrast of that romanticism. It strips the image down to the essence of its form and texture in in this case to the brutality and violence. Since black and white is rarely featured in entertainment and photography, black and white may be more shocking because of the impact people are not used to.

A photographer could always check with a simple conversion of the image from color to black and white and determine exactly what emotional effect you want to achieve. The choice may result in a photo that has huge impact.

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Jonathan Ramos's avatar

It's cool that he's been to all those war torn countries before he reminds me of sabastian junger he's a well known war photographer that directed restrepo . A documentary about American infantryman fighting in Afghanistan. Fun fact mathew heineman the director that directed cartel land said he modeled his film after restrepo. Except junger was at least inbeded with professional troops heineman inbeded himself with angry untrained vigilantes

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