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Gallery: having one colour

July 24, 2025 / 33 Comments

Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways

Oscar Wilde

In photography the word ‘monochrome’ is usually used to describe black and white images. But it doesn’t have to be.

Way back in November 2020, just a few months into my blogging journey, I wrote a post titled ‘Monochrome in colour’. In it I argued that the word ‘monochrome’ should not be synonymous with ‘black and white’. In it I wrote:

Although all black and white photos are monochrome photos, not all monochrome photos have to be black and white. Monochrome comes from the Greek monochromos meaning ‘having one colour’. But why shouldn’t that one colour be green, beige, or orange? Or for that matter, grey, red or blue?

Using shades of just one colour can create striking pictures that really capture the mood of a place. Such images can be restful on the eye or can really pack a punch, depending on the colour involved. Care needs to be taken, however, to ensure that the composition is sufficiently interesting; we are aiming for monochrome, not monotony!

Margaret must have been thinking along the same lines, as for this week’s Monochrome Madness she proposes that we ‘explore those shots which, by accident, design, or clever editing, are monochrome in any colour but black and white’.

As I have posted on this topic not once but twice previously (the second post was in September 2023), for this post I have chosen to focus on photos from my most recent trip to Sicily and Malta. I hope they meet the brief and also back up my assertion that ‘monochrome’ is not the same as ‘black and white’.

My feature photo was taken looking down from the Piazza IX Aprile Belvedere in Taormina, Sicily.

Door in Sliema, Malta

Another detail from the same door in Sliema

At the B&B La Saline, Sicily

At the Villa Laura, Sicily

View of Etna from the Villa Laura, Sicily

Barn door, Sicily

Door in Mdina, Malta

Church of the Assumption, Mġarr, Malta

Window in Noto, Sicily

The Maltese coat of arms on a building in Valetta, Malta

At the Palazzo Violetta, Sliema, Malta

Sleeping cat at the Villa Laura, Sicily

Door in Ortigia, Syracuse, Sicily

Fishing nets in Marsaxlokk, Malta

Rose after rain at the Villa Laura, Sicily

33 Comments

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