When one thinks of a city, one usually thinks of lots of colours, and a lot of buzzing with all the energy roaming around. Our bodies are programmed to have all of our senses work together in unison to give you the experience of having had smelled this, seen this, heard this, felt this and sense this and that when you were in a certain place. When we take some senses away, like the sense of sound, one can’t hear the city sounds in a photo of it, or smell the cars and sun burning on the tar, so in photography a dimension goes missing, and it is the photographer’s responsibility and challenge to try and bring that back. But because art is so fast and is subjective to whomever gets to view it, regard it and create an opinion about it, it also allows the artist to explore all mediums, and photographing in black and white has a certain appeal that many people find fascinating.

Because it isn’t how we see usually, our brain fills in the colours, so we’ll know black and white photo of a banana is actually yellow, as we have a memory of it. Photographing cities in black and white, creates an interesting perspective on the city’s way of breathing. It almost looks like time is frozen when one sees that, and it has a way of making you notice textures, lines and shape more when you see the image in monochrome.

Try your hand at monochromatic photography; it truly is inspiring, fascinating and very satisfying.

Yolandi Jacobsz

Photography