Seeing the world in black and white
Newsletter #11
Why does my 4 year old insist on filling every pocket in every pair of shorts with sand, sticks and stones? And then get angry with me when I dare to sweep them all up from the floor at bath time and put them elsewhere. And when I say put them elsewhere, I mean placed carefully in the garden, because god forbid I try and treat any of them with disdain.
In case you haven’t realised, there are 2 weeks left of the summer holidays. Please forgive me for the newsletter silence, my energy has been needed elsewhere - mainly building, and then rebuilding (and rebuilding, and rebuilding…) Magna-Tile towers.
However, in between shaking sand out of bags and shorts pockets, or negotiating temporary custody of toy monster trucks, I have managed to take my film camera out once or twice. And on one of these occasions, I loaded a roll of black and white film for the first time.
I’ve never shot in black and white, not even digitally. I have always composed my images around the colours I can see through the viewfinder, and edited based on how I want the colours to be represented. What’s really weird with black and white film is that the world through the viewfinder is still in colour. You kind of have to guess what it’ll turn out like once you drain the blues from the skies, or the reds from the buses.
Street photography purists will always champion the use of black and white film, a representation of the early days when the genre was first getting established. Many still prefer the monochrome look (you know who you are), and I envy their ability to piece together images which don’t rely on colour to anchor scenes.
That said, I think I like it. There is a cost to shooting in colour. It can somehow dilute the purity of an image. There is also a risk, though. Your subjects can become more defined, but in busy scenes can quickly get lost without colour helping to separate them. Does that make sense? I’m still trying to work this all out.
I think I need to return to this subject in another newsletter, but for now this will have to do as my toddler has woken up, and we’re late for a birthday party. I wonder if balloons, cake or wrapping paper would have the same impact if they were all represented in monochrome? I’m not sure. But what I do know is that, on this occasion, when I got the scans back from this roll of film, I was obsessed with the results. Here are some of my favourites. What do you reckon? Would you have preferred to see any of these in colour? I’d love to know your thoughts.
I wish this topic was actually black and white.
Pentax ME Super & 50mm f1.7 | Illford XP2 Super 400
24 August 2026
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