Squeak, a koifer for trying to suggest reasons for black and white? The koifer standards have really dropped precipitously lately. May have something to do with the stock market.
Actually, if you look at pictures of the gedolim of the early 1900’s they do not appear to be black and white. One reason why you may have thought they were black and white is that color film didn’t exist then, and all the pictures were in black and white. Did the gedolim have special extra-frum grass and trees that were grey and not green? I don’t think nishtaneh hateva applies here. I think it is just an artifact of the black and white film.
I hope I am not a koifer for thinking that the trees in Reb Chaim Soloveitchik’s town were green.