Conclusion
Quantum photography is a third alternative to the choices of black and white and
color photography. Color quantum photography demonstrates a way in which color can
be used in ways unique to the medium of photography. It goes beyond prior understanding
of the descriptive limits of color photography. With color quantum photography, it
is possible to see the color and the image simultaneously. The visual indeterminacy
of color quantum photography images makes them distinct from conventional color photography
(including filtration). The images may look like paintings, photograms, darkroom
manipulations, digital manipulations, and etc., but they are not. The only manipulation
in quantum photography that I allow is filtration, and the images strangest in appearance
usually involve no filtration at all. Only advancements in digital photography would
allow one to come close to mimicking these images, and only then after the quantum
image has been seen by the digital photographer. The following is a listing of the
various areas of quantum photography. Not all of areas mentioned involve color photography.
The Blue Period
The Blue Period is a universe of photographs shot with film that has some direct
relationship to the color blue. Because all film is inherently sensitive to blue,
filtration is generally not involved in Blue Period photography. It is an on-going
series.
FF Photography
FF Photography is the concept of treating the film in the camera as a filter,
and then systematically applying black & white filter photography to color photography.
White light split through a prism creates a spectrum of colors. In conventional
filter photography, the effects are predicted by imagining these colors to be projected
through a color filter onto a white surface: a color filter is placed between the
prism and the white surface; the filter blocks some colors of the spectrum, and the
colors that pass through are imagined to be projected onto a white surface. Although
it is not stated, the film plane is that white surface. In FF Photography,
white light split through a prism creates a spectrum of colors that is projected
onto a colored surface. We know what color the surface is, because the colored surface
is the film being used.
In simple terms, the film loaded into the camera is itself a filter. A film's
technical characteristics: color temperature sensitivity, spectral response, color
bias, etc., make it a de facto color filter. For example, tungsten film used in daylight
becomes a blue filter. Then, knowledge of black& white filter photography (which
is actually color theory) is applied to color photography. The color of the filter,
the other colors transmitted from the subject that pass through the filter, and the
color of the film are all variables.
Because the film is also where the image forms in addition to being a filter,
the interaction of color occurs wherever the film plane is exposed to light creating
a predominant color cast which permeates the entire tonal range of the film. At the
same time, many colors are still transmitted through, or reinstated by, the filters.
As a result, the effect is not entirely monochromatic, but somewhere in between the
monochrome of black&white photography and the comparatively unlimited range of
color photography. Due to the fact that outdoor color temperature and the spectral
characteristics of film varies, these photographs cannot be imitated using either
current digital or darkroom techniques.
Alphachromes
Alpha is the symbol for the variable used in optics equations to determine the
absorption of colored light. Alphachromes are a special condition in FF Photography
where the color of the film and the color of the filter cancel each other. This produces
a highly unstable non-color which changes dramatically in appearance depending on
the light source. This is behavior distinct from viewing a color slide under the
correct lighting conditions. In theory, alphachromes are possible throughout the
entire range of FF Photography.
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