The Zebra Monochrome Magazine Issue #1 The Zebra Monochrome Magazine Issue #1 | Page 141

Q: Do you think some people are just more
black and white orientated?
I don’t know. I actually think the disposition is
determined by the work. When I envisaged
these images, they were in black and white
– and that would have been at a time when I
was shooting entirely in colour. It’s just that I
don’t think those images would work as well
in colour. Indeed, for a certain part of the early
stages of their creation, they do exist in colour.
I work on them in colour for as far as I can
and then I convert them to black and white. It
makes a lot of difference. They just suit black
and white, or black and white suits them much
more than colour.
There’s much to say about colour. There’s
an added layer of psychology: there is the
psychology of colours and how they affect
the way we see and feel about things. And
of course the relationships between colours
within an image also have a tremendous
impact on the viewer.
I think it was Ansel Adams who said that a colour
photograph shows you what something looks
like and the black and white photograph shows
you what something feels like. I agree with that.
I think black and white is much more adept at
conveying emotion than colour. Removing the
colours from an image, or shooting an image
in black and white or presenting an image in
black and white seems to be a more emotional
thing to do. I can’t really explain it any better
than that.
It seems to me, we live our lives in colour but
we feel them in black and white. At least I do.
When you look at life, particularly the sadder
aspects, they are monochromatic and that’s
why I think these particularly images suit black
and white format. That having been said, the

toning obviously gives the print an added
dimension. When I see a print before it’s toned
and then later when it is toned, there is a vast
improvement. The tonality of the final print
adds something to the process.
The sound of colour is black and white and it
screams at you so quietly. There is a dimension
to black and white which kind of tugs on the
heart strings or perhaps the soul strings. You
might also say that colour is the sadness that
gives black and white its melancholy and
these images are unashamedly melancholic.
Melancholia, I guess, is presented better in
black and white than in colour. That isn’t a
universal rule, that’s just how I see it.
If I were looking at the gamut of photographic
history and attempting to isolate what I
consider to be the summit of photographic
achievements, I would say that it is the
beautifully printed black and white print. My
experience has taught me that nothing holds
the details in the shadow areas of a print better
than a silver gelatin print.
Whereas with my images, I find viewers doing
a double-take - looking at them and thinking
“well, here’s a black and white photograph” and
then after a second look not being so sure that
what they are looking at ever existed in a way
that it could have been photographed. That’s
what I enjoy about showing them. It doesn’t
happen so much now of course, because we
are now so conditioned to seeing manipulated
images, but very early on, when I was show