Monochrome with the Huawei P9

I can remember growing up, most of the pictures that I saw and took was in black and white. Photography and cameras have come a long way since then. Today, with a purchase of a mobile phone, the camera and "film" come to us "free". How times have changed and are changing!

Black and white photography always have a place in my heart, perhaps it serves as a link to my past, an awakening that time does not stood still yet parts of it can be frozen and preserved as food for the soul in the form of photographs.

And with the Huawei P9 mobile phone, it was certainly a good excuse to revisit the charming genre of monochrome photography. I think black and white images add a hint of mystery to the composition and it draws me in to scan for the little nuances in the context of the subject.

This is not a review of the phone and camera, just illustrations of my first moments with the camera, arising from the exploration of a genre that connects to me. However, I'd like to highlight briefly, that the collaboration with Leica, which has a good reputation in monochrome photography was certainly a pulling factor. The monochrome mode captures photos with the monochrome sensor, unlike most smartphones where the photos are taken with an RGB sensor and then desaturated to look like a black and white photo. It's supposed to capture more details and light with lesser noise as there is no colour filter in the way.

Snapping pictures with the P9 was an enjoyable experience and it has made me fall in love with black and white photography again. The world is full of colours but as Michael Jackson paraphrased, it don't matter if you are black or white.

For a review of the camera, there is a write-up at Simply Robin and a fun survey at Facebook-MalaysiaKini video