“Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.” – Eliott Erwitt

Black and white images, for me, are intriguing and timeless. They are less distracting and focus more on what really caught my attention to begin with.

I’ve been going through my photographs, some from years ago, partially because I have more time on my hands during the pandemic, but as I did so, I realized something about my photos. I’ve noticed I’m photographing more inanimate objects lately. Even photos I take of Heidi are when she is at rest. There isn’t as much soul in my recent photographs, which is what I realized my black & white photos (from before) had evoked. There is a parallel to my lifeless photos of late compared to how I must really be feeling inside during this pandemic. Lacklustre social life / lacklustre photos. This foray into my previous images, like the first one below, reveals the light that breaks through when a person is fully engaged in life and nature. We see things differently.

Then and now. Fulfilled and falling flat. Black and white.

I hope you will enjoy this huge assortment of my previous images plus a few quotes from others.

“Nothing conveys mood and emotion quite like a good black and white image. But simply removing colour from an image is unlikely to achieve this.” – Robin Whalley

“Black and white has an unsurpassed ability to convey character.” – David Prakel

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!” – Ted Grant

“I work in colour sometimes, but I guess the images I most connect to, historically speaking, are in black and white. I see more in black and white – I like the abstraction of it.” – Mary Ellen Mark

“The special factor about black and white photography is that it doesn’t just copy the reality, but it represents it with its own language.” – Gian Marco Marano

“Color is everything, black and white is more.” – Dominic Rouse

Riding off into the sunset.

So have you been ‘looking back’ during the pandemic? Whether literally or metaphorically.

One thought on “black and white”

  1. hmm, after reading your introductory remarks; and was in complete agreement, i see life in all of your photographs except for one. to me, the photograph, ‘in the winter of life’ is the only pic that expresses a true still life image.

    the greyscale leaves the eye to explore and i see a whole lot of life going on here.

    you’re way more filled with expressing life than you realize : – )

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