I’ve started an email publication about black and white photography, predictably called monochrome.
Every week/fortnight/month/whatever, I’ll be posting a few black and white pictures and perhaps some thoughts that go with them. Mostly it will be just the pictures though.
I’m publishing monochrome on Substack, a hosted platform for email newsletters. They give you free hosting and email distribution in exchange for a cut of your earnings from subscriptions - should you ever decide to charge a subscription fee. You don’t have to do that though.
Ever since I finished my bwrss project of publishing some black and white photos only in an RSS feed, I’ve been thinking and thinking about what to do with my black and white photos. Particularly, a good way to share them on the internet.
The bwrss project wasn’t really about photography, it was about the open web and RSS feeds. It was an attempt to remind the world that RSS still exists and is a good thing; black and white photos were just a tool to get that job done. They were a thing I could put into a feed. And, bluntly, I had plenty of them lying around.
Since then, though, I’ve been trying to think of something interesting and different that I could do with black and white photos, that is all about the photos. Instagram doesn’t appeal, and appeals less and less as it becomes more like Facebook. Flickr might yet have a bright future under its new owners, and I’m still a paying member, but I couldn’t work out a way to publish a visibly separate creative project within it. There’s always Tumblr, I suppose, which also might yet have a bright future under new ownership.
But I saw Dan Hon switch to Substack, and had a bit of a think, and decided: yes. That could be interesting. Photos by email. Why not?
You can sign up for monochrome here.
Filed under: projects
(12 September 2019)