I know what you will be thinking, it is springtime and the world is full of colour, so why has he gone back to black and white after that splash of colour in the macro images? Well the answer is that the 2 new images in the galleries needed to be monochrome – honestly!
“Furrows” is not intended to be an image that the farmer would hang on his wall to be proud of his field. Rather it is an exercise in geometry designed to appeal to a much wider audience. I am trying to use the lines of the plough furrows with the screen of trees to produce an interesting geometric image for the viewer. To that end, shape is the important factor and colour is not. As soon as I saw the scene, I saw it in black and white. That is not to say I physically did, but more that I could envisage that colour would not contribute to what I was aiming for. In actual fact the only significant colour in the scene was the mid brown of the field itself, which would actually have detracted from the visual impact I was after. Hence monochrome was the way ahead.
“Bus Stop” is a slightly different case. Here colour could have worked, particularly as those in the scene were quite muted. An image with a low colour saturation (level) would have told the story in a slightly different way from the image I have produced. Personally I don’t like to combine hard grain with colour and as I was going for a gritty image, that pointed towards monochrome. Here is a classic case of there being no “right” answer; it is all down to what the photographer is trying to achieve in the end and of course, personal taste.
There being no “right” answers is what makes this photography game so rewarding.

24/04/2013