The Arctic is a magical place, wild, bleak, hauntingly beautiful. It is also, surprisingly perhaps, full of colour. However there are plenty of scenes that lend themselves to black and white photography too.
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Who hasn’t been mesmerised at times by the sight and sound of the sea? Watching the movement of waves, whether on the shore or from a ship, can be almost hypnotising, or so I find.
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One of the first things I was told when I first started to take photos as a ten year old was, always have the sun behind you when you shoot. Rubbish! That will of course result in a scene that is evenly lit and easy to capture. But it may also result in a scene that lacks interest.
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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?
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A childhood favourite is the alphabet book. For the English speakers amongst us, the last few letters of the alphabet always presented the biggest challenges for those creating these books. X was always ‘for Xylophone’, Y ‘for Yacht’ or occasionally ‘for Yak’, and Z usually ‘for Zebra’. But most letters offer a wide range of options, among them H.
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While I try to avoid too many picture postcard souvenir shots when I travel, it’s inevitable that I will take some. I feel the need to record what I see initially, before diving deeper into the sights, looking for details or angles that are less obvious.
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When was the last time you used some form of transport? Car, bike, bus, train, plane … Most of us can’t get by without at least one of these. And wherever you go in the world, while the choice of transport might vary, people are on the move.
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One of the joys of Italy for me is the warmth in the colours of the buildings. When I think of Italy I think of ochres, terracottas and umbers. So it may seem strange to photograph Italian scenes in black and white.
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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. But some subjects are naturally black and white.
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Woods (and forests) are lovely. But their very darkness and deepness can make them hard to do justice to as a photographer. One tree can merge into another, and another, and … It’s hard for the eye to find a single point of interest on which to settle and focus.
