Recently one of my techie friends borrowed one of my cameras and noticed that it was set to shoot in black and white. He was puzzled by this and asked why I did it? It seemed irrational to him that I should voluntarily throw away information. After all, if I wanted a B&W image I could always get it by de-saturating the image in post-processing. And if I were really finicky I could use something like SilverEfex not just to desaturated but even to replicate the grain structure of iconic B&W films like Tri-X.

And of course at one level he’s right. But what he’s ignoring is that when you’re shooting in B&W your photography changes in subtle ways because you are forced to see things differently. Some scenes may not work in colour because it may overwhelm or swamp what’s important in the scene. Or it may reduce the intrinsic drama of a situation.

Since we see in colour, B&W is, by definition, an abstraction. As someone put it in a blog comment, “Black and white is a fantasy. When someone sees a B&W photo, they know they’ve been transported into another place and time”. Once B&W was an unavoidable necessity — the only way we could record images on silver halide. And for a time after colour film appeared shooting in B&W was a pragmatic choice, based on economics: monochrome was cheaper. But with the advent of digital sensors, that logic evaporated: there was no longer an economic reason for eschewing colour. It became an aesthetic decision. Which is a long-winded way of explaining why I shoot in black and white.

We won’t be beaten on price, just on Amazon, originally uploaded by jjn1.

This photograph of the Cambridge branch of Jessops on its last trading day is rather melancholy, given that this particular high street chain was synonymous with photography for millions of Britons for so many years. Two things did for it — the switch from film to digital; and the rise of online retailing and especially Amazon. In the end, Jessops shops were reduced to serving essentially as places where consumers could see and handle cameras which they would then go out and buy from Amazon. With hindsight, perhaps the chain could have turned this from a problem into an opportunity — in the way, for example, that the John Lewis chain has. But for that to have happened, the management would have had to appreciate the importance of making the switch “from place to space” in the late 1990s. Like many bricks-n-mortar retailers, they didn’t. Pity.

LATER: Good post “The High Street is Dying. Did the Internet Kill It? No, it took its own life”. HT to Magnus Ramage for the link.

Cut it out, originally uploaded by jjn1.

A DIY Xmas decoration spotted in a student house.

Winter punting, originally uploaded by jjn1.

The Cam this afternoon, with smoke signals from King’s.

It’s strange how calming photography can be. I had a frantic work day, with one large economy-sized crisis and missed deadlines whooshing by. The crisis necessitated a meeting in the centre of town at 4pm, so I decided to walk rather than cycle in from College and — on a whim — took a camera. The air was still and the late-afternoon light entrancing. As I crossed Clare bridge I noticed — to my astonishment — that there were people on the river. So I stopped, contemplated the scene — and took some photographs, of which this is one. And then I walked on, suddenly peaceful and relaxed.

Another country, originally uploaded by jjn1.

Christmas ivy on one of my favourite photographs.

Who left the bath-taps running?, originally uploaded by jjn1.

Flooding at Sutton Gault.