Sometimes I just want to shoot black and white, see the compositions, the light, the patters but completely ignore any colors. Like discarding a layer of information that is not essential to see the nature of things. There is so much information being stuffed into our daily lives; sometimes I think that we are starting to behave like computers, iso computers starting to behave like humans.
We search so much. The anxiety of humanity is visible; we all want to get to point B or C, that perfect life, finding that hidden spot or that hidden truth. All the technology and information is supposed to help us with that, but 99% of it is only feeding the neo cortex of our brain. If we accept that we evolved to what we are today, should we not accept that a lot of good has already taken place? That there is already a very high level of information in our natural world and natural selves? I say let us not forget that part because it is at least half of who we are and probably our secret to happiness.
“Simple Man” - Lynyrd Skynyrd:
…All that I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied
And be a simple kind of man
Something you love and understand…
Music is like that. Black and white photography is like that. When I use only one prime lens (say the XF 35mm f/2 Fujicron) and dial my camera to a B&W film simulation and record only jpeg in camera, I feel like I shed 90% of the information and options I could have, but as a result see more of what is there in its simple relationship with light. Some ESSENCE, an ever-present illumination that is hard to see because I am not aware of it, distracted as I was.
Did I listen to too much Wynton Marsalis lately that it set me in a B&W mood? Is my mind automatically associating jazz with Eugene Smith’s style of photo’s, or is it the February-grey weather? Or my mood during winter in general. Hmm, the fact that I am recovering from a depression must have caused some of it. Or it could be that my long search for my own style is converging and if I would listen to myself only, not social media, I would shoot almost exclusively B&W…
It is probably all of them, to be honest.
Lian's soft touches and melancholic lyrics warm up a crowd (Fuji X-T3, XF 56mm f/1.2, 1/125s)
I don’t want to state anything bad about a well-done color photo. I love them, for example landscape photographs from Nick Page, Michael Shainblum, or Erin Babnik they get to me with their beautiful color atmospheres. I make them. Just saying that there is ESSENCE that is easier to capture and see in B&W. Like Wynton Marsalis about jazz: new forms and experimentations are interesting, but the North-American jazz ‘got it’ fully in the 50’s and 60’s, and just needs to be preserved in the form it is (was).
Newer is not always better, just like more is no longer better.
A civilisation that gets richer by some people riding along with the latest wave of progress, and others preserving the good things of the past. Without preservation we are like a tribe suffering from amnesia, forever in anxious wonderment, never a clue of what already is.
I will cherish my B&W moods!
Technical FYI: Both my camera’s are set to a B&W film. They are mirrorless camera’s (the Fuji X-T3 and X-E3) with EVFs and I’ve turned off the raw file output for now, so that all is captured in black and white only, in the camera.
