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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.

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Multi-storey office building with white diamond-pattern expanded metal cladding alternating with horizontal bands of dark reflective curtain-wall glazing; angled glazed section on the right under a deep blue sky.
Monochrome photograph of a narrow arched doorway with studded wooden door and iron grille set into pale limestone ashlar on the side of a Gothic Revival church in Breda, cobblestones in foreground.
Upward view of a modernist office building facade in The Hague, showing horizontal bands of white cladding and dark window grids bisected by a sharp diagonal shadow running across the curtain wall.
Low-angle view of a narrow cobblestone pedestrian street in Breda, flanked by red brick heritage buildings, with a church tower silhouetted against a dramatic overcast sky at the vanishing point.
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.
Low-angle monochrome view of the SS Rotterdam gangway bridge spelling out the ship's name in bold letters, backlit against a hazy bright sky with the ship's upper deck visible at lower left.
Two dark stone-clad high-rise residential towers in Breda under a heavily overcast stormy sky, with a conifer between them and a historic spire visible above trees to the left.
Derelict industrial shed with exposed steel gantry frame on a graffiti-covered waterfront quay in Maastricht, Netherlands, reflected in the calm canal below a dramatic cloudy sky.
Interior of a concrete road tunnel in Pijnacker, Netherlands. A tiled wall with aged yellow and grey tiles recedes sharply into compressed perspective on the left; the tunnel ceiling cuts diagonally overhead. A two-lane road with white striping leads toward a bright tree-lined exit.
Wide view across the Maas river toward a Maastricht industrial waterfront: graffiti-covered quay wall, skeletal steel gantry, derelict warehouse, and brick factory buildings under a dramatic cloudy sky.
Upward view of a split exterior staircase flanked by glass balustrades at a limestone-clad residential building in Amsterdam Zuid, with planted terraces and steel-framed glazing above.
View from beneath a concrete tram viaduct in The Hague, looking through the underpass toward a red pedestrian traffic light, green trees, and brick apartment buildings under a clear blue sky.
Low upward angle on a mid-century glazed facade at Amsterdam Science Park. White-framed curtain wall grid fills the frame; a decorative round clock is mounted centrally. A canopy overhang is visible at the bottom, deep blue sky and a single cloud above.
Low-angle view up the corner of a modern concrete and glass residential tower in The Hague, stacked cantilevered balconies with glass balustrades forming a diagonal rhythm against clear blue sky.
Low-angle upshot of a large white ship superstructure with central mast, rigging stay wires, and signal flags against a bright, blown-out sun in a clear sky. Industrial dock shutters in deep shadow at the base.
Low-angle view of a bricked-up doorway recessed into a massive limestone block at Sint-Pietersberg quarry, golden-hour light raking across carved ashlar stonework, access railing shadow on the right wall.
Low-angle upward view of two dark brick wings of a classical Dutch building meeting at a corner, with a cream ornate cornice and dentil moulding dividing brick from clear sky. White-framed sash windows in rows on both facades.
Side elevation of the Rijksmuseum rear wing in Amsterdam, showing dark brick facade with ornamental medallion, steep slate rooflines with finials, a clock tower, and a pale limestone modern annex at right, behind an ornamental iron fence.
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.
Tall arched red wooden door with iron ring handle set into aged brick gothic arch of the Grote Kerk in Den Haag, flanked by two notice boards on the brick pavement.
Low-angle view of Fort Sint-Pieter, Maastricht. A broad grass-covered earthwork rampart rises above a stone casement wall, with a red flag at the summit and a large cumulus cloud in the blue sky above. Wildflower meadow in the foreground.
Monochrome view of the PTT Telefoon building in Breda. Dark brick corner tower with three stacked circular windows rises above an arched red doorway. A stone statue stands in a niche above the entrance. PTT TELEFOON lettered into the facade.
Monochrome view looking down a sunken dual carriageway curving into an underpass in The Hague, with glass office towers of the business district rising above the concrete tunnel walls under a clear sky.
Looking across a multi-storey building atrium in The Hague. Diagonal concrete floor plates cut across a floor-to-ceiling curtain wall mullion grid, rendered in deep blacks and bright whites.
A narrow Dutch alley in Haarlem, brick walls close on both sides, a parked car to the left, graffiti on the right wall, a church tower visible at the far end under a heavy 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.

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