I walk through a world that’s shouting in colour – neon signs, high-gloss screens, filters, flares – and then I find a corner that’s gone quiet. That’s where black and white lives. Not muted, not dull, just… honest.

It’s not nostalgia, really. It’s more like reduction. Stripping the thing down to the bones so the bones can speak. No colour to distract you, no candy coating. Just shadow and shape and light doing their strange dance. You notice things more when you’re not being dazzled. That twitch in someone’s eyebrow, the shape of a chair leg, the way a wall leans slightly to the left. Small stuff. Real stuff.

And in that reduction, there’s room. Room for emotion to creep in sideways, for symbolism to stretch its legs. You get a chance to breathe in the meaning instead of having it shouted at you in bright orange. It becomes yours to interpret. Like a song with no chorus – you just feel your way through.

Cartier-Bresson saw it, obviously. The way he captured time like it was a pigeon he could coax into his palm. Early colour film was fussy, temperamental – kind of like asking someone to dance with two left feet and a blindfold. But black and white? That was the language. Still is, really. It’s less about what the world looks like and more about how it feels when you stop pretending.

Patrick Summerfield once said, “Black and white photography is a perfect lie.” I get what he means. But it’s a lie that tells the truth better than the truth does. Colour can overwhelm. Black and white just whispers, “hey, look closer.”

Even Bresson dabbled in colour later on, but the stuff people remember – the stuff that matters – stayed monochrome. Maybe because it felt more eternal. More like a memory than a moment. Less like documentation, more like poetry.

Nowadays we’ve got apps that can make your dog’s breakfast look like a Wes Anderson still. But I keep coming back to black and white. It’s the quiet rebellion. The gentle resistance. The reminder that it doesn’t have to be loud to be seen. That there’s clarity in constraint.

I’m not here to knock colour. I love a good colour photo. But for me, black and white is where the magic lives. Not magic like spells and potions. Magic like coincidence and timing and the way someone looks when they think no one’s watching.

It’s not just a style. It’s a way of paying attention.