Andy Hawthorne

Here’s why I love black & white photography…

Another day and another set of problems related to work I didn’t enjoy or want to do.

I continued to organise people and answer questions about resources. That was my job.

But, the sun was out. And I was wishing that I was out with my camera.

Lunchtime rolled around and the sun was still out.

So, I wandered into my garden with my camera. There wasn’t time to go anywhere else.

But I figured I could try to macro-style shots for something different.

I wandered around my garden focusing in on the foliage. Which is when I noticed how glorious the light was.

I flipped through the shots I’d taken and began to wonder…

They would look great in colour. But, what about black and white?

The idea crossed my mind because of the variation I could see in the tones. I was already a black and white shooter for urban landscape work.

I set my view finder up to show black and white and continued to shoot a couple more photos.

Lunchtime was over, so, I processed the photos later than day.

I saw straight away that my assumption had been right. The colour versions were nice.

The black and white ones were intense and atmospheric. I realised at that point, it was the mood of the pictures that I liked.

and that’s the thing for me with black and white.

You can’t get the mood and atmosphere with colour. I’ve said that before. But also, you can’t get the intensity, either.

Colour softens the impact.

Black and white punches you on the nose.