Over the years I’ve never bothered that much with monochrome i.e. greyscale photography. This is despite having a love of the medium through the works of famous past photographers whose names are usually spoken with reverence. The list is long but a selection would include Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier Bresson, Dorothea Lange, Robert Capa to name just a few. I have of course had the occasional dalliance with monochrome but this has always been on the basis of thinking, for no well thought out reason, a photo might work in monochrome and look good hung on my wall at home.

All of my previous photography to date has focussed on producing clean punchy colour photos either for work or stock. It’s only since setting up this site, which is primarily aimed at satisfying requests for copies of existing work that the notion of also providing monochromes of the original photography occurred.

I’m not precious, pretentious or esoteric about my images nor do I have an ego that needs massaging. I like to think I’m objective about the photos I produce. From this objective viewpoint there is very little of my own colour photography I might choose to hang on my wall. How many times have you seen outstanding colour shots yet got the answer ‘no’ when asking yourself the question ‘would I hang it on my wall’?

I quote from one of my web pages ‘After years of hitting the shutter release I’m still left a little bemused sometimes about the images that people like and those they won’t give wall space to, also those that sell as agency stock and those that don’t. It’s certainly all in the eye of the beholder as the old saying goes’.

The above applies to both colour and mono. But in these days of highly processed colour imagery slapping you in the face I’ve found it both refreshing and perceptually interesting to always produce monochrome versions as well.    

Also find me at fotologica.co.uk and alamy.com