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Gallery: black and white are also colours

June 11, 2025 / 34 Comments

Suffice it to say that black and white are also colours… for their simultaneous contrast is as striking as that of green and red, for instance.

Vincent Van Gogh

Once upon a time all photos were black and white. With the advent of colour photography we had a choice and many of us make that choice according to subject matter. Others meanwhile prefer to stick only to one or the other medium.

I am among those who veer between the two, depending on mood and subject. But some subjects are, as Elke reminds us, naturally black and white. For her Monochrome Madness themed challenge this week I’ve searched my archives for the best examples, both from nature and manmade.

My feature photo was taken in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, near Glacier Grey. Only the faint hint of colour in the rocks bottom left gives away the fact that it was shot in colour. Look carefully at the shots below. In many you will find similar small touches of colour, and I rather like the way these distinguish them from true black and white photographs. None have been edited in monochrome, though some have been cropped to remove any significant coloured areas, and I confess I desaturated a couple so that those that remained didn’t dominate too much.

I’ve divided my images into natural and manmade. By the latter I mean that the lack of colour is due to deliberate design by somebody, not created by me in the photographic process!

NATURAL MONONCHROMES

Gullfoss Falls in winter, Iceland

Mini icebergs from Sólheimajökull, a glacier on Iceland’s south coast

Ice at the foot of Seljandsfoss, Iceland

Waves at Druridge Bay, North East England

White wagtail, Bardia National Park, Nepal

Asian elephant, Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Elephant calves, Chobe National Park, Botswana

Zebra, Chobe National Park, Botswana

Black and white ruffed lemur, Madagascar

(a bit too much colour perhaps, but I couldn’t resist including him!)

Black-winged stilt, Sine Saloum Delta, Senegal

MANMADE MONONCHROMES

(for some reason, most seem to have been taken in Paris, not a city I think of as monochrome!)

In the Place Saint Sulpice, Paris

If this looks suspiciously like a monochrome edit to you, check out this old post, Backlighting to add drama and atmosphere, where you can see what a monochrome version actually looks like!

In Montmartre, Paris

Mural in the 14th arrondissement, Paris

Door on the Île Saint-Louis, Paris

Sculpture in Saint-Christophe-de-Javel, Paris

Apsaras (dancing girls) at Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Half-timbered house detail, Rye, Sussex, England

34 Comments

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