Kuala Lumpur - Black and white Street photography

I moved to KL almost 2 years ago. After 5 years in Sarawak and a short stint back in the UK I was excited to explore my new hometown. There is nothing more enjoyable to me than just going for a wander on my own to explore new places. The thing I love about KL is there is so much variety for street photography. The thing I hate is that as a Scotsman i'm sweating from every pore of my being after about 10 minutes, but it's worth it.

When I started taking pictures I joined a kinda photo club at Washington Arts Centre in Glasgow back in 1989. I started shooting in black and white film. I loved the control you had in the darkroom with tone and contrast. I guess this stuck with me. It makes you think about light and shade, contrasts and tone.

Near Suria KLCC

Shopfront near The Row

The other thing I love about wandering the street with no particular shot or idea in mind is that you often come across unexpected things. I love pictures with unexpected contrast like this shot of a cow under the LRT line near Sentul Timur LRT station.

One thing that has always drawn me to shooting black and white is that it works really well in terms of emphasising texture and pattern. Sometimes the most mundane subjects can work really well in black and white.

When I was at college I bought a square format twin lens camera (Mamiya C330). It was great for street photography as the shutter was so quiet and it had a waist level viewfinder. But the thing I loved most was the square format. It was like a poor persons Hassleblad. I have been messing about a lot recently with square format photography, quite the rage now with Instagram.

Burnt out house and car in Kampung Baru

1921 Kampung Maru

One of the really beautiful things about monochrome images is that they can be more emotive and even melancholy than colour images sometime are. Especially if the subject matter has a human element. I suppose growing up seeing black and white images from photographers like Sebastiao Salgado left an impression on me. Not that these pictures have anything in common. But I think black and white can convey more emotion sometimes.

Near Pasar Seni

But for me the best thing about wandering around is just finding unexpected moments. You never know what is around the corner.

Brickfields

Brickfields

Anyway I hope sharing a few shots and thoughts was useful.