What would seven days in your life look like without colour, without people? Here are my pictures of a monochromatic week in the life of one @mjcarty.
Fresh from last month’s #Inktober daily drawing challenge, my lovely friend Kate Griffiths-Lambeth set me another challenge, one that she herself was also undertaking. Take a photograph a day for a week. The limitations? Black and white only, and absolutely no people.
I am no photographer, so this was an interesting flight into the unknown.
Sunday 12 November 2017
My Sunday morning (and therefore also my week of monochromatic exploration) began as so many Sundays do with an early morning pilgrimage to see my friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in statuary form. Didn’t seem all that bothered by the biting cold and the pouring rain.
Quite unbelievably, I found £10.05 on my freezing, damp, Sunday walk! Here is photographic evidence of my distinctly damp haul. The hazy effect was the result of my mobile phone’s camera readjusting from the cold outdoors to the warmth indoors back home.
Sunday 12 November 2017 was Remembrance Sunday. My wife and I accompanied my father in law to a quite beautiful service on the Ashdown Forest to honour the war dead. A huge crowd turned out, people of all ages (some on horseback, some groups of runners making it the focal point of their Sunday run, a sausage dog carried in its owners arms) converging on a war memorial in the midddle of nowhere, which marks a site where an aeroplane crashed during World War II. The service was beautiful. A bugler played the Last Post. A Tiger Moth aeroplane circled overhead, sprinkling crepe paper poppy petals over the crowd. Please consider making a donation to the Royal British Legion.
Monday 13 November 2017
Angels. Their quiet beauty watching over eternity. Keeping the spirit of Remembrance Sunday going into the new working week, I took a Monday lunchtime walk to the war memorial nearest my place of employ.
A rather extreme close-up of the vegetable that – at least in my domicile – we call "space broccoli"! (Yes, I know it’s by no means broccoli, really…)
Tuesday 14 November 2017
A different kind of angel. On my way to the train station in the very cold, very early hours of the morning, I spied that our local Xmas decorations have been put up (but have yet to be switched on).
What we in the trade like to call a #coffeeshot. The Starbucks Xmas cup design for this year reminds me of my friend Poonam Munshi’s quite wonderful, intricate drawings on paper cups. Regard her wonderful Instagram for examples of her work.
Wednesday 15 November 2017
I felt absolutely horrible with a swift-onset of cold on Wednesday morning. It came on so fast and left me feeling so low that I had to head for home after only an hour at work. This picture depicts the damp, blackened bricks and girders of the bridge above as I waited for my train back home.
Help! The minute I got in, I had to take some soluble paracetamol for my poor head. As it was bubbling away, the beauty of the silhouetted Beatles struck me.
Thursday 16 November 2017
Still distinctly under the weather. No matter how I feel or what the elements might do, the Buddha in my front garden remains serene. At one.
Friday 17 November 2017
Stagulent statuary at the entrance to the medical centre where I attended my second ever physiotherapy session. My back learns to click and stretch again, pummel by pummel.
Saturday 18 November 2017
My seven days of experimentation with black and white photography of objects sans humans concludes with the cup of coffee which is fuelling me as I write these words (and the stovetop espresso maker in which it was brewed). This has been a massively enjoyable experience. I have loved keeping an eye open for wee things that might have been overlooked, but which almost seem to unfold their secret life when viewed monochromatically. Thank you for the challenge, Kate! And anyone out there who might fancy chancing their arm at a week’s black and white photography – please do give it a go!
MJCarty 
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