Black in Color Images
Contributors' Picks from Around the WorldPublished in X-Ray Magazine
Issue 128, September / October, 2024
Text and Photos by Michael Rothschild
As automaker Henry Ford may or may not have said about his cars, “you can have any color you want as long as it’s black.” Scuba divers – especially technical divers – have long had a similar choice. And while manufacturers are now throwing splashes of color into their gear, black still dominates the market. This is a challenge for photographers hoping to show some of the detail of their models’ kit, ever battling the tonal range on the left side of the histogram.
In figure 1, the diver’s gaze is locked on the photographer as he finishes deco, perfectly poised in the water column. His suit and rebreather are all in technical black, but both AP diving and Fourth Element each threw a bit of yellow into the scene, contrasting nicely with the rich blue of the shallow Pacific in the background. Figure 2 is also a tech diver, this time in the frigid waters of Newfoundland. In his black gear with yellow accents, he is drifting up out of the black void of the hold below. In figure 3, the jet black pupil of the clownfish lurks behind the venomous tentacles of his symbiotic friend the anemone, like a portal to another dimension. And figure 4 shows another diver in Canada, again wearing black with yellow accents, surfacing in the cool green of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
In figure 1, the diver’s gaze is locked on the photographer as he finishes deco, perfectly poised in the water column. His suit and rebreather are all in technical black, but both AP diving and Fourth Element each threw a bit of yellow into the scene, contrasting nicely with the rich blue of the shallow Pacific in the background. Figure 2 is also a tech diver, this time in the frigid waters of Newfoundland. In his black gear with yellow accents, he is drifting up out of the black void of the hold below. In figure 3, the jet black pupil of the clownfish lurks behind the venomous tentacles of his symbiotic friend the anemone, like a portal to another dimension. And figure 4 shows another diver in Canada, again wearing black with yellow accents, surfacing in the cool green of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
