Black and White in The Grey of November
Browsing at the weekly forecast seems to be a fools game this time of year. You want a glorious and sunny autumn day? You’ll get one after nixing all your plans for the day and staying inside because of a defcon red typhoon outside. Yea that’s right the sun will show up whenever the f*k it feels like after a horrendous downpour, and you’ll say “Thank you!”
In all honesty though, the weather here in southern BC can be nothing short of depressing this time of year. Anyone in the PNW knows that we get a big windstorm, then cold sun, then it rains for what feels like eternity. On top of that, those storms have all but emaciated the forest foliage of any colour except a dull dark and sopping brown mixed with the subdued green of pine trees.
Personally I don’t look around and see much vibrance, and that’s something that seems to affect my motivation to bring a camera with me. That is until last year around this time I finally gave in after years of protest, and shot in black and white.
I thought the absence of colour was against all that I had grown up thinking about art and life in general. I used to paint in a surrealist fashion using the brightest colours that I could make sense of to bring canvas to life. “Why would anyone waste time and money shooting B/W?” It was a common argument between myself and my wife as she always had pushed me to photograph something sans colour.
The love for this format has wiggled it’s way into my everyday work whether it’s shooting for a client or just around the house. Lately I’ve been keeping the X100vi on hand with Ilford HP5 plus loaded to the preset slot. If there happens to be a film snob turning their nose up at that last sentence then please, go look at the prices of film and getting it developed and get back to me. Yea I know I could do it at home but for heavens sake I have 600 hobbies too many, just look at the state of that 68 Mustang above. Besides I do have a couple rolls of Kodak Tri-X in the drawer for a rainy November day in the future.
Last year when I started shooting black and white I didn’t realize that it can also make you appreciate colour and being able to manipulate it in your art. The simple act of changing white balance is something people could only once dream of, so I probably shouldn’t take it for granted so much.
It’s always good to take on new ideas and formats, it can expand your mind in ways those high school hallucinogenic drugs couldn’t even come close to. It also makes you appreciate your environment more, and the people you choose to have in your circle( yea it can go that deep). At the very heart of it plain and simple, is just fun. Going out for a trip to the corner store and imagining your GTI is piloting through some noire film is imaginative and hilarious fun if you enjoy things of that nature.
Anyway, its still been a long and grey month, the rains aren’t gonna leave us for any long period of time until right before it freezes for two weeks around Christmas. It’s ok because I don’t really see too much of the dark, sopping wet glazed over bleakness of the weather, I just think of the world in Black and White.
