Will Cheung
Will grew up with black & white photography and still prefers creating images in shades of grey to vibrant colours. Interesting fact: his first-ever published picture was in Amateur Photographer back in 1977, a snow scene in monochrome. www.williamcheung.co.uk
Making black & white pictures is challenging, creative, fun and intensely rewarding. What’s more, every digital photographer can indulge in this form of expression with no need for any extra kit. All that’s needed is a little re-training in your mental approach to picture-taking and perhaps learning a new editing technique or two to make the most of your vision.
Another option is to take the analogue route if you still own a film camera. Of course, you could always pick up a pre-owned film camera or take the low-fi Lomography route. I have several toy cameras including pinhole models that see regular use and I scan the negatives to work on.
When I embarked on my photography journey, there was only film with the choice of colour print, colour slide or black & white. Going monochrome was the obvious route because as a schoolkid, it was the only affordable one. Not only that, but the pictures I saw in magazines and books that fired my imagination were in black & white. I grew up loving and being inspired by the work of many legends of photography including Ansel Adams, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Duane Michals, Arnold Newman, Irving Penn and Sebastião Salgado, to name my magnificent seven. Their work continues to inspire me and no doubt many others. Google the names if they are unfamiliar to you.
If you are already a keen mono shooter, you will have your favourite workers; however, if you’re finding your way in the medium and need inspiration, now’s the time to get on the internet or to a bookshop. Whether you’re fired up by the work of old masters or more contemporary visionaries, there’s a lot of wonderful imagery out there.
Open your mind
So, what subjects work in mono? It is a topic regularly discussed and answered in features such as this and it would be easy to reel off the same old recommendations: street, scenics, portraits and so on.
To me, though, that doesn’t truly reflect the possibilities and my view is that black & white can be applied very successfully to almost any genre. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you should turn every image in your archive into shades of grey and that these will be more successful than full-colour shots. No, what I am saying is that black & white shouldn’t be pigeon-holed in this
