Delays and Cancellations

Need to go large really to fully appreciate the story.

I want to promote Paladian's Mono Monday Challenge tonight. As you'll be aware I mostly post my blips in mono anyway so it's not so much of a challenge for me, but I thought I would use this platform to encourage those who don't normally play with black and white processing to give it a go next week. I think my first hundred blips were all in colour. I don't think I had 'got' the mono thing at all at that point, or at least lacked the confidence to try it out. I think it's one of those things you just have to dive in and play with and learn by experience. You have to develop an eye for what works, a sensitivity to texture and pattern, a certain sensibility, one that is drawn to light and shade rather than the normal immediacy of colour.

I think I've come to an understanding of why I personally love black and white photography so much. I think it's mostly because it forces our visual senses to work harder and see beyond the surface of things. Our normal visual apparatus is quite lazy. For important reasons it's designed to notice change and the unusual. The familiar gets filtered out. By removing the colour we somehow subvert that filter of the familiar. Our perception is drawn far more to the patterns and textures that are left behind. And I think there is a much stronger emotional response as a result. That's how it works for me anyway. A good black and white photograph is less about specifics and more about the universal.

Take this shot, as I think it's quite a good example. Left in colour, I'd say it's not much more than a record of a specific morning at Shipley station, a kind of documentary record. However, rendered in black and white I think it assumes a more universal significance. It becomes about delays and cancellations in a general sense. These specific people are now a representation of everyone caught waiting for a delayed train, or puzzling over what to do when a train is cancelled, encompassing those that are resigned to their fate and those who are determined to be proactive. It's not to say that the story isn't there in the original colour photograph. It just emerges far more naturally in the mono version. This is a scene we can all relate to. Because the black and white shot is less about particulars we can perhaps more naturally place ourselves in there with these people and experience their same emotions.

I hope that doesn't sound too pretentious. That was five minutes worth of stream of consciousness writing (because I really need to eat some food). I'd promised OneDavid my thoughts on this question some time ago. I think this expresses what I wanted to say. And I hope it encourages you to think a bit about black and white photography if you haven't before. This is a wonderful place to learn. Do let me know if you lose your mono virginity next Monday!