Monochrome

When I started shooting on film, I planned to focus primarily on black and white. But soon, I found myself shooting more colour—first because it felt easier and probably because colour film images tend to get more engagement on social media over monochrome. Still, black and white remains my favourite medium. Without the distraction of colour, it forces me to focus on composition, texture, and contrast.

My fascination with black and white photography is rooted in a childhood love of history and discovering the work of Sebastião Salgado.

As a kid, I developed a strong interest in history. While others skimmed their textbooks, I pored over them, searching for every archival image I could find. This was before the widespread access to the internet and instant access to millions of photographs. Books were my window into the past. Those grainy, monochrome images are a large part of learning our history and acted as a time capsule of places that changed over time.

Later, I discovered Genesis, Salgado’s breathtaking photobook, which completely reshaped how I saw black-and-white photography. At first, I assumed the images were digital—over-edited to create a dramatic effect. And when I learned they were mostly shot on film and that Salgado had committed his career to black-and-white across every subject imaginable— social portraits, landscapes, world events, wildlife—I was blown away. His work proved that black-and-white wasn’t just a nostalgic aesthetic; it was a powerful way of storytelling.

Favourite way of shooting black and white:

A 35mm camera • A roll of Ilford HP5+ pushed 1 stop • Red filter.