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