I haven't shot much these last couple of weeks. The camera stayed home and I didn't fight it. But my brain didn't stop. I kept thinking about how to improve my shooting, about projects I want to try, about what to do next with my feed.
In February I started taking extreme close-ups. Textures, repeating shapes, things I'd normally walk right past. I started calling it patterns because I needed some kind of umbrella for what I was doing, and that's what I ended up publishing in March.
From there I got into black and white. Not because I planned it, but because the patterns work pulled me in that direction. I decided to commit to it for the month and plan all my posts in B&W.
Black and white made me stop thinking about color when composing. You start paying attention to light and texture and structure in a way you just don't when color is available. And in editing, I went back through old photos I had already discarded and started seeing things in them I'd missed. So I brought them back, experimented, played around. I enjoyed that part of the process a lot.
When I went back to color, something had carried over. Now when I'm editing a color photo, I turn it to black and white first. I adjust exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows. Then I bring it back to color and the photo has a different perspective, one I wouldn't have found if I'd just edited in color from the start. The B&W month actually made my color editing better.
Now I'm keeping notes. When I see a style or think of a new direction I want to try, I write it down. I want to keep doing this, one style experiment at a time.
The next one is self-portraits. I'm not used to being in front of the camera, which already makes me feel vulnerable. And doing that in public directly conflicts with my introversion. Right now everything on paper sounds amazing, but I really need to see how it goes once I actually start executing. I'll probably document the whole thing and post a video about it too.
What I’m Using
Kodak Plus-X 125 film simulation recipe from the Fuji X Weekly app. This is the recipe I used for the entire B&W project. Textured and contrasty, not dreamy. I specifically avoided my black mist filter for these shots because I wanted more texture, not softness.
Fujifilm X100VI* with the K&F Concept UV Filter*, the SmallRig Hotshoe Thumb Cover*, and the Peak Design Slide* strap. This has been my setup for the whole project.
Adobe Lightroom for editing. This is where I went back through old photos and found shots worth revisiting during the B&W experiment.
"Every Claude Code Concept Explained for Normal People" by Simon Scrapes. Not photography. I've been looking into AI tools, specifically Claude, trying to figure out how to offload the parts of my workflow I don't enjoy. Still figuring it out, but this video helped.
*Affiliate links. If you buy through these, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Still Shooting,
Cesar
P.S. If you want to see the B&W series and follow along with what comes next, that's all on Instagram. The self-portraits will show up there first.