Black & White

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There’s something special about black and white photography. We cannot help but perceive colour all around us, so the black and white image doesn’t capture the world as we see it, but rather, as we remember it.

It is said that we dream in black and white. I don’t think that’s true. Dreams, like memories, are a non-visual sensation. We might remember some colours that might have stood out, but that’s a memory of the experience of colour, not colour itself.

As Andri Cauldwell puts it:

To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul.

I’ve loved shooting black and white film for a long time, especially on my medium format Mamiya 7II. Recently, I’ve been re-inspired by the work of Adrian Vila (I highly recommend his blog).

The birth of photography occurred in 1826 when French inventor Nicéphore Niépce created his groundbreaking View from the Window at Le Gras. The process involved coating a pewter plate with bitumen and exposing it to light for eight hours. The light exposure hardens bitumen, so in areas where less light reached the plate, the bitumen remained soft and could be washed away. After polishing the plate, Niépce was left with a negative image.

We’ve obviously come a long way since then, via the daguerreotype and the calotype, and eventually colour photography. Yet, despite the popularity of colour photos, it’s still black and white photos that we remember best.

Here’s some of my favourite photos that I’ve taken over the years.

A sleeping baby.

This is baby Eli, snuggled up in his pram.

A portrait of a young man in a motor racing uniform.

My cousin Michael, before an important go-karting race.

A cut marble cliff-face.

The marble quarry which has been in use since Roman times, just outside Carrara, Italy.

A woman making coffee with an espresso machine.

My friend, and barista, Sofie.

A boy holding a fence.

This is Lior, on his way out of the chicken coop after collecting some eggs.

The front door of an apartment, with Hebrew handwriting, tiles, and the number 5.

The door to our apartment in Nachlaot.

A man using a large format view camera.

I met this guy in Yosemite National Park. He was shooting El Capitan on his large format camera.

A double exposure of a woman on a motorcycle.

An accidental (but very welcome) double exposure of a friendly bikie.

A group of people meditating in a city.

A group of people meditating in San Francisco.

An Indian bride, laughing with her bridesmaids.

An Indian bride, laughing with her bridesmaids.

The dust and scratches in the images below a result of me bring a lazy while processing the film.

A fat little baby, looking at the camera with his head tilted.

ELI!! What a cutie!

A boy with a crooked bowtie and messy hair.

Lior being Lior.

Hanging film negatives.

I used to process my own film. Here the negatives have been hung out to dry after being bathed in a fixer and washed clean. These are photos of my trip to San Francisco.