Monochrome Madness,  People,  Photographic techniques,  Street photography,  Themed galleries

Gallery: getting on in years

August 12, 2026 / 62 Comments

When I get older, losing my hair

Many years from now

Will you still be sending me a valentine

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?

Paul McCartney, When I’m Sixty-Four

I learned only recently that McCartney wrote that song when he was only fourteen or fifteen years old. Sixty-four must have seemed like a distant world. It certainly did to me when I was that age! I think it shows a surprising level of maturity to be able to imagine what a relationship between sixty-four year olds would look like.

This is a subject a bit too close to home for my liking, having reached my seventies last year. I find it a little hard to believe. I remember when I was younger, ‘old’ people told me they still felt the same inside as in their twenties or thirties. At the time I didn’t believe them but it’s true. Your exterior appearance may change with the years but it’s only the shell holding the ‘real you’ within!

Perhaps oddly, while I find my own aging appearance less than appealing, as a keen street/candid photographer I’m often drawn to older people. And especially for monochrome photography. The character in these faces really suits that medium; or does the medium suit the character? Either way I hope they will work well for Elke’s Monochrome Madness theme. And by the way, I chose my quote before seeing her post; great minds do indeed think alike!

I have to start with an apology however. You will surely have seen many of these photos before as a lot of them are favourites of mine. I hope you’ll bear with me as I bring them all together for this post. And many at least are new edits, either presented for the first time in black and white and/or with new crops, lighting etc.

Somewhere along the way I had the idea to square them all, inspired by one I had already squared for possible inclusion in my photo group’s exhibition next month (the lady in Santiago, Chile). She won’t be in the exhibition as another of my images was selected, but I wanted to make use of that edit so here it is, alongside some other squares. My feature photo, not squared, was taken on the Rue Mouffetard in Paris.

NB I am, by the way, fully aware that some of these people are probably younger than I am!

On a café terrace in Santiago, Chile

In Villa de Leyva, Colombia

In Salento, Colombia

Posing for photos in Havana, Cuba

Our guide’s mother-in-law, Bangaan, Luzon Island, Philippines

On the rice terraces near Banaue, Luzon Island, Philippines

Near the Lama Temple in Beijing

Elders in Narlai, a small village in Rajasthan, India

On the streets of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

At Jodhpur Fort, Rajasthan, India

Shopkeeper in Kovalam, Kerala

A dhoby wallah (laundry worker) taking a break in Kochi, Kerala

In Kovalam, Kerala

Outside a bar in Arpino, Italy

On the city walls, Lucca, Italy

On the rue de Buci, Paris

In the Place Dauphine, Paris

On the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris

Outside a bookshop in Sofia, Bulgaria

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