Style experiments · 3 min read
See your jewellery again in a black-and-white photograph
Temporarily remove colour from a copy of a photograph you enjoy. Notice what you like in the jewellery’s lines, then return to the colour version.
Begin with a colour photograph you enjoy
You like the small pendant against your cream shirt. When you look at the photograph, your first thought is that the colours work nicely together. If colour takes a brief step back, can you name anything else you enjoy about that pairing? Begin with a photograph of a look you already like, rather than choosing different jewellery.
Make a copy of the photograph on your phone and apply a black-and-white treatment only to the copy. Keep the colour original. Leave the framing unchanged, without enlarging the jewellery or redrawing details through retouching. Two versions of one photograph let you try the exercise without changing clothes, lighting or pose at the same time. A photograph you have taken for yourself is enough; it does not need to have been shared.
Describe the line rather than the colour
In the black-and-white copy, look at the pendant’s outer edge. Do you see a solid oval, an open curve, or a small point at the end of a fine line? Then notice the space in the fabric around it. You may find a relationship you enjoy between the necklace’s downward line and the opening of the shirt. There is no need to draw it neatly; following its edge on the screen with a finger is enough.
Beside “I like the dusty rose colour,” you might add, “I enjoy the rounded edge next to the shirt’s straight line.” The exercise tells you nothing about the piece’s actual colour, material or quality. The settings of a black-and-white treatment can change the image too. Describe only the line you notice in that copy. You may discover a shape that had been quieter in the colour version.
Return to colour before deciding
Open the two photographs side by side. Does the detail you enjoy in colour occupy the same place as the shape you noticed in black and white? It is fine if the answers differ. Perhaps colour is the main reason you love that necklace; perhaps you enjoy its shape as well. The aim is not to dismiss colour or declare the monochrome version more stylish.
Close the screen and think about the jewellery in your everyday look again. Keep one short note if you like: “I enjoy both the little spot of colour and the rounded edge.” Try one small action today: remove colour from a copy of a favourite photograph, find one word for the shape, then return to the original. You have asked two different questions about a piece you already choose, without acquiring anything new.
