KRIS

This months assignment was a challenge. I googled monochromatic and read about single color spectrums, hues, and how they work together. I learned two things straight away: I had very little knowledge of the many different names assigned to the hues of one color, and how difficult it’s going to be to capture a purely monochromatic scene on the street. After a lot of thought and suggestions from the collective, I finally got to a place where I was open to looking at things in a new way. 

One afternoon of shooting offered a spark. A woman sitting in the window of a cafe was lit beautifully as she wrote in her journal. The reflection from the glass showcased the golden afternoon light that seemed to work well with the rich mahogany table top. I decided to try and build something around this image. 

The hues created in the hot afternoon sun revealed themselves throughout the city. Cinnamon, walnut, peanut, and tortilla. Coffee, pecan, gingerbread and syrup, I found a great color chart here that mapped it all out.

The color in the brick reflected in a car windshield made for an interesting composition.

Underneath Marina City offered an opportunity to capture some interesting shapes, negative space, and a trio of subjects in stride. This is a classic compositional go to for me in my black and white work. Here it seems to work in color.

It was a refreshing challenge to allow another way of seeing into my conscience. I can only hope that it adds another dimension to my work in the future. 

HUGH

The whole point of doing these assignments is to stretch our skills, creativity and technical prowess – and to inspire one another along the way. I had to learn to slow down with my photography with the Monochromatic challenge. My usual style is to keep moving and photograph anything of interest that catches my eye. I soon realised that what I needed to do here was find a scene and “fish it” until the right subject appeared in the frame. Having said that, there were one or two occasions when I happened upon a scene, photographing it before I’d fully realised what I’d got.

ANN

At first sight, the monochromatic challenge sounded fascinating, but not overly tricky to me. As I live very close to the waterfront in Nice, I often work around the color blue and its different hues according to weather, light conditions and mood.

And yet, the more time I spend on looking for those monochromatic frames, the less I seemed to find them. There was always that one “disturbing” element of another color – an orange umbrella, a yellow hat, a white shirt floating in the wind. I realized how much I usually treasured these contrasting color spots to spice up a frame, heighten the depth of blue or add something dynamic. Another method was required.

Walking through the city without my camera, I actively looked out for locations likely to produce a monochromatic frame. I used my cell phone as a sketchbook and tried to train my eye on gray walls, red doors, green chairs etc. At the same time, I decided I wanted to stay true to my own style – otherwise said, I hoped to be able to have a human element in the frame in a human centered street photography approach.

Suddenly, the perfect monochromatic frame was just in front of me. A woman wearing beige tones and a straw hat leaning against a sand-colored stone pillar. Only, there I was leaving the supermarket, loaded with shopping bags and without the camera. I dropped it all, fished for my phone and got immensely lucky. Since the lady was engrossed in her phone, I caught the scene. Relief and a certain, somehow amusing feeling of pride – my first monochromatic frame wasn’t yellow.

In the following weeks, the challenge got somehow easier and I stumbled upon different monochromatic scenes. I learned how much we can try our eyes to see something new if only we are brave enough to leave that comfort zone.

JEFF

Once I decided on beige as my color of choice, it was amazing to see how focused I became on seeking out monochromatic photographs showcasing “pale, sandy, yellowish-brown” colors as described by Oxford languages dictionary.

I explored scenes at different times of day like golden hour to see how sunlight changed the white balance of the scene and the interaction of light with reflective surfaces.

I also found myself zooming in with my feet to explore smaller details within larger scenes to exclude colors that did not align with the monochromatic theme.

I also tried to set myself up for success by finding monochromatic scenes and then waiting for a living element like a person or birds to interact with the scene.

While I think I stayed true to my style of photography, I definitely noticed new monochromatic scenes in places I have visited previously with my camera. This assignment called for each of us to transcend the “scavenger hunt” mentality. We needed to make photographs that aligned with the theme but also found a way to infuse the sense of moment or story into the images. I found this part particularly challenging and I think I grew photographically through the experience. Thanks Stolen Echoes for pushing me to get outside with my camera! Your support, inspiration, and friendship mean so much to me!