Some people see in colour, but I tend to see in black and white. I don’t know if it’s because I come from the world before digital, where “serious” photography was always monochrome. It just resonates with me more, and with you too, Dear Reader. Or at least I hope it does because in all the posts on this site there is a theme. Apparently. Subtle. But if you look closely enough, you might just find it.

Believe it or not, when I use black and white film, well, this conversion doesn’t even enter my mind. I learned to “see” in black and white while learning my craft back in the day. Nowadays we have digital cameras that can convert your image to black and white in-camera, but I still prefer doing it myself in post-production.

I just wanted to show you the differences since here we all deal in Monochrome, hence the name Monochromia. It might also help those of you who are new to black and white photography and wish to see what can be done to a colour image.

For info, the photo was given to me by a friend on Instagram asking me how I would edit her self-portrait. I don’t think I did too shabby a job.

For those of you wanting to explore black and white photography for yourselves, I would suggest buying a film camera, loading it with the black and white film of your choice, and sticking to it for a whole year. Same film, same camera. Like this, you too will start to see the beauty of black and white, and you will get to know your film stock and camera. Just an idea, and it certainly worked for me.

For more ideas, have a look at the photography tutorials on IJM Photography, or the HP5 Plus 100 ASA experiment — film photography at its most deliberate.

The conversion shown here illustrates the core principle of monochrome work: it’s not about removing colour, it’s about redistributing luminance. A dedicated black and white conversion (rather than a simple desaturate) lets you dial up contrast in specific tonal ranges — here the skin tones were pulled toward the mid-greys to give the portrait a timeless, film-like quality. Explore more techniques at IJM Photography.