My way with monochrome

Morris Gregory · Issue 7, Jun/Jul 2002 · pp. 36–39

Products mentioned: Ilford XP2, Ilford Delta 3200, Ilford Delta 400, Kodak High Speed Infra Red, Nikon 801s, Subal Housing, Ikelite flashes

The underwater world is an environment full of colourful fish, corals and other marine life so it’s only natural for photographers to want to produce their images on colour film. Indeed, that is how I began my underwater photography and I will still continue to contribute to the profits of Fuji etc by taking lots of transparencies. However, having started out as a land based photographer shooting both colour and b&w I decided it would be interesting to explore what could be done with monochrome film underwater. My main reasons for using b&w film on land are that it allows me to concentrate on form, shape and texture and also that it can create mood and atmosphere in a picture which can sometimes be lost through the distraction of colour. I decided that the underwater world would also lend itself to the same kind of reasoning. A further very practical reason for using b&w film is the free…