A Year of Black and White
Given it’s the end of the year, I always like to try and set objectives for the year ahead.
Quite often they don’t work out well - in truth, most objectives I try and set myself quite often come to little, but I like to try and keep myself thinking.
A year in black and white
For 2022, the aim is to shoot exclusively black and white.
Let’s forget about colour, let’s forget about fancy editing - let’s get those creative juices flowing through simple black & white and the glorious tones that monochrome gives you.
I enjoy the colours of the woodland, but quite often find it difficult to keep it consistent. It’s a constant dilemma I have - shooting in colour or black and white.
Maybe that’s to do with my colour blindness, maybe it’s the lack of subtlety in my editing. Whatever it is, I do find it is frustrating at times.
Shooting and editing in black and white should also provide a more consistent approach to my work as well.
Of course shooting in RAW means a colour RAW file, but I can set my camera bodies to show a black and white preview, with Lightroom I can set a black and white import and with careful simple editing maybe it’s just possible to alleviate some of those creative worries that colour gives me.
Keeping it simple
Once again, my feelings turn to gear. It’s a constant internal churn I have with myself, I have a couple of different cameras that I turn to and despite the enjoyment of using different makes and models I crave simplicity.
I’m happiest when I have a camera body and a single lens with me. Even the introduction of a second lens often causes me to consider which focal length would be better for any specific composition when I’m out.
I’d like to remove such feelings, so the plan is to use my M10-P as my main body and the 35mm Summicron for as much work as I can.
I love the ‘cron 35mm, the image quality and field of view suit me, it really is the reason why I bought a Leica body for that lens.
Looking at my LR catalogue I shoot at around 35mm focal length for approximately 90% of all of the images I take. Even when I use a zoom lens I tend to see a composition at that kind of focal length.
As I’ve written about previously, the Leica M bodies are a bit of a compromise for a lot of what I do, but it’s a camera I love to use - it makes me want to take photographs and when I use other systems I feel like I’m simply pressing the shutter button rather than making a concerted effort into finding out how to make the image.
So, the objectives remain pretty similar to those I made around the same time last year - only this time the resolve feels more solid.
Only time will tell I guess!