Monochrome Monday: what is monochrome photography

Hi, my dear friends!

It’s Monday today. Traditionally it’s a day for monochrome photography. At least it was like that before and I will allow myself not to break this tradition😉 It’s not a common rule but if you want it’s a good day to share your monochrome photos.

Today I also want to speak a little about the theory of this kind of photography. I found some materials, processed them and illustrated them with my photographs.

So, what is monochrome photography?

Often the terms black and white photography (B&W) and monochrome photos are interchanged. I must admit that I also did it. However these two kind of photography are not identical. Monochrome photography involves placing one color onto a neutral background, for example grey, but it can also be brown, reddish-brown or blue. Any image that only consists of one color with various tones is a monochrome image. On the other hand, a B&W photo utilizes 255 shades of grey including black and white, which are not truly colors. To be honest, I'm not even sure that one of these terms is broader and includes the second. However, I'll think about it or maybe some of you will share your ideas on this matter.

The simplest way to comprehend what monochrome means is to split the word into two segments: mono and chrome. Mono stands for one and chrome stands for color. Hence, one color. This is the definition of monochrome photography - to capture an image employing only one color and its different tones that show or evoke a desired emotion.

Black and white is the only monochrome photography style that includes true blacks and whites. All other types of monochrome photography involve various shades of a single color, ranging from very light to very dark. For instance, sepia photographs utilize a reddish-brown hue (originating from cuttlefish ink) that gives the photo an vintage look. I like sepia. In this photo you see my dog ​​and her puppy. The photo is old and not very good quality. However, it is this filter that allows you to give it a softer and more attractive look than if I left it in color or made it plain black and white.

Additionally, cyanotypes are a cool blue monochrome technique of producing silhouetted images, most of which are created with digital post-processing filters. I like them as much as I like sepia.

It's nesessary to say that our world is rather colourful and it is really nice. But if you want to make a monochrome photo without editing it may be a challenge to put into practice. However, editing is not the only method of obtaining a monochrome image.

If you are looking to produce a monochrome photo with your camera, you have to look for scenes in monochrome. Examples could be a serene green forest, a detailed close-up of a yellow flower, or even dark brown mushrooms on a wooden table. Imagination is the key to capturing great monochrome photos. In fact, everything is not so difficult, because you can create the necessary scene for shooting yourself. But I must say that this is still a matter of attentiveness and training your ability to see. If you start doing this, you will soon see that quite a lot of monochrome scenes are surrounded by this.

Alternatively, you can use an application like Photoshop or any editing tools to generate a monochrome image from a full-color photo. This process is divided into two steps. First, you have to take away the color from the image by transforming it to grayscale, then convert the picture to two-tone and choose the color you want to use. This technique is suitable for developing monochromatic images that can be used for various purposes, such as inventive marketing ads, photography displays in the home, or for a variety of craft projects.