Cart

The cart's empty. The shop isn't.

Made to order. Shipped worldwide.

Portfolio

Monochrome Moods

Black and white photography, at its best.

Monochrome Moods is black and white photography at its best — it plays between the contrasts of light and dark, finds the farthest edges between them, and puts them in one image. Not only stripping a photo to its essence, but finding a new truth.

moody
Monochrome view of a contemporary limestone-clad residential building with stepped planted terraces, glass balustrades, and cumulus clouds behind, Amsterdam Zuid.
Looking up along the nave of Grote Kerk Breda: ribbed stone vaults with painted ceiling bosses overhead, tall clerestory windows at the apse, dark choir screen and chandelier in the foreground shadow.
Low-angle view of Amsterdam Science Park station's glass curtain wall, large white spaced letters spelling 'Science Park' across the full width, red railing visible inside, clear blue sky above.
Low-angle upward view of a glass curtain-wall office tower in Amsterdam Zuid, its rectangular grid of dark grey glazing panels rising against a heavy overcast sky.
Looking up into a multi-storey glazed atrium interior, stacked walkways and mesh balustrades forming horizontal bands across a vertical steel mullion curtain wall, clear sky visible through the roof.
Low-angle upward view inside Haarlem railway station. Cast-iron arched canopy ribs span the roof in silhouette against a central skylight. Tiled HAARLEM nameplates are fixed to a pale brick facade column at mid-frame. Pendant lamps glow dimly in the dark interior.
Flat-on view of a Rotterdam brick facade with alternating striped awnings above a recessed basement entrance marked 'BASEMENT', shot under overcast light.
Low-angle upward view of a brutalist ribbed concrete facade at Amsterdam Science Park, horizontal corrugated cladding filling the frame with a pale sky visible at the upper corners.
Looking up at a curved multi-storey apartment building in The Hague, its facade covered in an alternating chequerboard of dark brick and cream stone blocks, with black iron balcony railings and a narrow strip of overcast sky above.
Monochrome interior of Atrium City Hall in The Hague: a curved granite staircase rises left, railing shadows cast sharp diagonal lines across a white wall bearing the word Raadzaal, an information kiosk visible at lower right.
Low-angle view of a riveted steel arch bridge over the Maas in Maastricht. A massive concrete pier dominates the foreground; the arched truss rises against a cloudy spring sky.
Low-angle upshot of a glazed high-rise residential tower in The Hague, its concrete curtain wall grid filling the frame. A Canadian flag hangs diagonally in the foreground against a clear sky.
Wide-angle monochrome view of a Dutch hofje gatehouse in Haarlem — octagonal brick pavilion with a hipped tile roof, weather vane at the apex, white-framed sash windows, iron railing, and a cobblestone plaza under a heavy overcast sky.
Low-angle upward view of two modern residential towers in The Hague. A tall rectilinear tower with curtain wall glazing and balconies fills the centre; a curved dark facade occupies the right edge. Clear blue sky and a faint contrail in the background.
Wide fisheye view of Grote Markt in Haarlem, with Sint-Bavokerk's Gothic facade and tower dominating the frame under a heavy overcast sky; stepped gable of the Vleeshal visible to the right.
Upward view of a dark slatted wooden soffit bisecting the frame diagonally, with a corrugated metal arena dome visible through the gap against an overcast white sky, Rotterdam.
Looking up from the Rijnhaven waterfront at the angled glass KPN Tower and the gridded vertical facade of De Rotterdam on Wilhelminapier, Rotterdam, under a clear blue sky.
Low-angle upward view of a point-fixed glass curtain wall in The Hague. Spider fittings and tension rods form a precise grid against a clear sky, with atrium steel structure visible through the glazing.
Monochrome view of a white bascule drawbridge over the Spaarne canal in Haarlem, with ornate 17th-century step-gable brick facades and a heavy overcast sky.
Worm's eye view of a dark octagonal church tower with an ornate crown finial silhouetted against a turbulent overcast sky in Haarlem, flanked by Dutch Golden Age brick facades.
Wide-angle view of Haarlem's gashouder dome behind a wooden construction hoarding and cherry-picker, with a Victorian brick building to the right under an overcast summer sky.
Upward view through a cable-braced steel canopy in Amsterdam Zuid. Two dark suspended panels flank a lattice of crossing steel rods and nodes, with a glass curtain wall and overcast sky visible beyond.
Low-angle monochrome view of a stepped brick gable and Gothic church spire in Haarlem, Netherlands, under a heavy overcast sky with dark layered clouds filling the upper frame.
Low-angle view of stone steps ascending toward the Nela building in Amsterdam Zuid. The cantilevered stone facade rises on the right, with signage, a glass-railed balcony, rooftop greenery, and a deep blue summer sky behind.
Low-angle view of the neoclassical stone facade of Teylers Museum in Haarlem, with pilasters, arched entrance, bronze sculptural group on the pediment, and a red flag on a central flagpole under an overcast sky.

Only the photographs that work better without colour show up in Monochrome Moods. The frame holds itself up — by form, by light, by contrast, by the weight of what's in it — and colour would be in the way.

The work runs heavy on architecture and industrial register. Modernist glass facades from below where the grid becomes the photograph. Brutalist concrete — stairs, walls, the texture of poured surfaces. Old facades against dramatic sky, civic and institutional buildings read as graphic form, factories and cranes at the working edges of cities. Landscape and water make it in too — coast, polder, fog over a field — but black and white tends to reward subjects that already think in form. The Netherlands is a country built in brick and reclaimed land, with civic buildings as graphic anchors and weather doing dramatic work on a flat horizon. The collection draws on all of it.

Light does heavy lifting here. Stark sun for the deepest blacks, heavy overcast for the flattest tonal range, fog and weather for the dramatic register, a sky doing graphic work behind a facade. Black and white rewards conditions that already think in it — high contrast or even contrast, never decorative middle.

Camera is a Nikon D3500. Prime and wide-angle both, used however the subject calls for it. Full kit on My Gear.

Monochrome Moods is photography at its strongest in black and white. The frame stands without colour because it never needed it.

Also in the portfolio

All collections