A Monochorme May

On a trip to Japan in December the year before, looking at the scenes around me, the light was so hard where the colour in my own eyes were washed out. The light so bright, it made the colours in the shadow turn black. I remember raising my camera to take the photo in colour. Upon review, i could hardly tell the difference between the colour and monochrom profile, so i decided to edit it as a black and white image. Unlike the constant softbox I had locally, the contrast only became harder with monochrome, I was hooked.

When i got back home, there was a yearning for a missing feeling. Nothing had such beautifully hard light and contrast as I did in Japan. I came to the realisation, that I would need to look for and create that contrast myself.

Leading up to May, I decided to challenge myself to a month of shooting and editing in monochrome. Our eyes are natrually drawn to contrast. Be it the compression and background separation of the telephoto, vibrant colours or, contrast in subjects or actions, etc. I was eliminating the tools i had and creating limitations to further create a better understanding in the art of Contrast in light and shadow .

Funnily enough, on the first day, i went to Little India. I was definitely put far out of my comfort zone. with an opportunity of an area filled with vibrant colours. But as i went on, i started to realise to see the benefits. Just seeing black and white on the view finder helped cut the disctractions of colour and helped me focus in to composition and lighting.

When the month ended, i just kept shooting in monochrome. I do still shoot in colour, but majority of images i had captured in June were monochrome. What I went in doing as a challenge has come out to be more of a preference I held in my images.

Below, is the gallery of all 31 days of May’s photo i posted each day. Separately, I compiled a gallery of photos in June that were monochrome.

Monochrome May