Why I Chose to Shoot in Monochrome That Day

(This post continues a story from a photo I shared earlier.)

There’s a song I’ve always liked called In Color by Jamey Johnson. He repeats the same line through most of the song, but it didn’t really hit me until I watched the video all the way through one day. Seeing those old photos in black and white, and then watching the color come in at the end, made the meaning land a little different.

“A picture’s worth a thousand words,
But you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered…
You should’ve seen it in color.”

That line came back to me the day I took the photo of my wife holding our grandson.

I had the camera set to monochrome that day. Wasn’t trying to be artistic or make some big statement. I just liked how it slowed things down. When everything’s in black and white, you stop worrying about the background, the colors, all the extra stuff. You notice the expressions more. The little things. The way people look at each other.

The picture turned out just the way I hoped it would. Simple. Quiet. The kind of photo that could’ve been taken ten years ago or fifty years ago and still feel the same.

But the truth is, if that picture says a lot in black and white, it said even more in color.

It was one of those hot July days. Family everywhere. Food cooking. People talking over each other. Kids running around. The usual kind of noise that comes with a good cookout. And right in the middle of all that was this one moment where everything felt calm for a second. Grandma holding her grandson like nothing else in the world mattered.

The black and white photo shows part of it.
It shows the feeling pretty well.

But what it doesn’t show is the heat, the light, the noise, the way the whole day felt alive around us. That’s the part the camera never really keeps.

That moment wasn’t just something I photographed.
It was something I got to stand there and watch happen.

Every time I look at that picture, I hear that line from the song again.

A picture might be worth a thousand words.
But some moments are bigger than the photo.

Time has moved on, but that moment hasn’t.

That’s enough.