Why B&W?

Well, I could give all the cliched answers, like how black and white pictures look classic and timeless and how colours are a distraction, but for me, the main reason for shooting black and white is that the content I capture is more about the story it tells.

What does a picture show and tell?

This is the question I try to answer when I see an image, and I love and try to make pictures that ask this question to the viewer. I don’t want people to look at my photos and say - wow, look at the colours! Where is the fun in that? Instead, I want them to think and tell a story from what they see. I also try to put the viewer in that moment and witness it.

Love

I am sure you would agree that it wouldn’t have mattered if this picture had been colour. But I understand that every human thinks differently and people may have different opinions. So, I am not here to force you into B&W photography. I am just trying to tell you what I do and why. Here is another one.

Who is watching?

While I agree that the colours make the images more eye-catching, do they make them more beautiful? I say it’s relative to the content of images. For example, if I am making a picture of a garden full of flowers, it should be in colour. Or if I am making a picture of a yellow car kept in a row of black cars, a coloured image would make more sense.

But I don’t focus on making such pictures. I try to find subjects that tell a story when on the street. If you want to know more about this, look at this project.

Another technical reason is my limitations with colours. I don’t know my limits and often over-edit a colour image. But I have realised that, as long as I can tell the stories, the colours don’t matter.