Black and White

Throughout my involvement in the arts, I have never considered black and white to be colors. In photography, film can be categorized into two main groups: b&w and color; since black and white have their own film type, one would assume them separate from color. In painting, black and white are used to alter hues into tints or shades, so with that in mind, black and white can be seen as components of color, but not as colors of their own. There are three primary color theories that can help answer this question. One theory deals with color as light, another with color as pigment, and third with color through vision and reflections.

The room used to transfer film from its container into a development tank is commonly referred to as the ‘black room’; because the ‘black’ of the room results from an absence of light, the ‘color as light’ theory would not consider black to be a color. In the opposite environment, the presence of all colors of light, white light becomes visible. Under the ‘color as light’ theory’, white is recognized as a color, because it results from the blending of all other colors. The exact opposite ruling is found with pigments. When the three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) are mixed together, black ultimately appears. Therefore, black is recognized as a color by the ‘color as pigment’ theory, and white is not.

I consider the final theory is the most accurate of the three, as it takes into consideration what is observed through human eyes. Under the ‘color through reflections’ theory, each color is associated with a visible wave length between 400-700nm. White results when an object reflects all visible colors, while black, unassigned a wavelength, is the result of an object absorbing all visible colors. To the human eye white is a color, and black is not. In reality, a black object is not truly black, because it would need to reflect some amount of light in order to be seen.

source:
http://www.colormatters.com/entercolormatters.html

Why Do Real Men Wear Pink?

At the dawn of the millennium a new phenomena had arrived to take the place of the Y2K craze: more and more men began to wear pink shirts. I have often wondered about the origins behind this trend, but my past inquiries have yielded no success. So with this blog assignment I saw an opportunity to renew my search, and seek the help of the world’s wisest philosophers . . .
Alas, there was much debate amongst them as well.


In order to answer my own question, it was necessary for me to look into the psychological effects of the color. Interestingly enough, in the early 1970's, a shade of pink had been used as a variable in several prison-aggression reduction trials. The holding cells of newly arrived inmates would be painted Baker-Miller pink, and their reactions to it recorded. One of the doctors behind the trials summarized the results as:

Even if a person tries to be angry or aggressive in the presence of pink, he can't. The heart muscles can’t race fast enough. It’s a tranquilizing color that saps your energy. Even the color-blind are tranquilized by pink rooms.

Ever since, pink was recognized to have a calming effect over the human mind. However, in the mid 1990's, follow-up research indicated that the effects were short-lived in of the many cases, and the color could even lead to increased aggression after prolonged exposure.



Taking into consideration the results from both studies, why do some men wear pink?
Correct!
. . . point proven. Just like the inmates' behavior to pink was subconscious, perhaps the motive behind wearing a pink shirt is to unknowingly display [calming] signals of attraction. Since the effects aren't long lasting, it may be wiser to stick with another color shirt.


Images:
www.answers.yahoo.com
Sources:
http://bacweb.the-bac.edu/~michael.b.williams/baker-miller.html
http://www.colormatters.com/entercolormatters.html