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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Industrial Silos Against Dramatic Sky, Maastricht

Copper Crown Tower The Hague

Dark Stone Facade Repeating Windows Zuid

Raadzaal Staircase Light and Shadow

Modernist Facade Clock Amsterdam Science Park

Carved Stone Door ENCI Sint-Pietersberg

Modern Residential Tower Balconies The Hague

Glass Balconies Rising, The Hague

Concrete Viaduct Underpass Red Light The Hague

Industrial Waterfront, Maastricht

Glass Curtain Wall Interior View The Hague

Motorway Flyover and Crane, The Hague

Haarlem Station Platform Canopy Interior

Corporate Tower Against Deep Blue Sky

Bronze Figure and Gothic Church, Haarlem

Glass and Concrete Towers, The Hague

Windmill Sails Against Dutch Sky

Curtain Wall Grid Against Hague Sky

Teylers Museum Facade Haarlem

Red Door Grote Kerk Den Haag

Bird Mural Gable Wall Maastricht

Curtain Wall Grid, Interior Atrium

Atrium Curtain Wall Looking Up, The Hague

Dark Cladding Against Blue Sky

Layered Overpasses, Amsterdam Science Park

Haarlem Courtyard Tower Dramatic Sky

World Trade Center Amsterdam Entrance

Rond de Grote Kerk Street Sign, The Hague

Curved Canopy and Gabion Wall, The Hague

Science Park Station Glass Facade Amsterdam

Linde Industrial Tank Amsterdam Science Park

Nela Building Staircase Amsterdam Zuid

Exhibition Banners on Dutch Gabled Facade

Blocked Doorway Stone Quarry Sint-Pietersberg

Glass Tower Upward Amsterdam Zuid

Classical Facade Upward The Hague

Glass Tower Against Brooding Sky

Glass Tower Against Clear Sky, The Hague

Industrial Waterfront, Maastricht

Grote Kerk Haarlem from the Grote Markt

Windmill Sails Against Sun Amstel Park

Stacked Atrium Floors Glass Grid

Prison Wall and Warden's House Haarlem

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

The Signature Collection

Architecture, as the subject.

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The Halcyon Collection

Pink-graded photography, and everything adjacent.

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The Atmospheric Collection

Sense of place, urban and natural.

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All collections