"You have a face for black and white." That's what the scout said, between sips of gallery wine, while I tried to work out whether I was being complimented or catalogued.
I know now that it was neither. It was a technical observation. Black and white photography is unforgiving in a very specific way: it takes away every distraction colour provides and leaves you with structure - bone, shadow, line, and whatever is happening behind the eyes. Some faces flatten without colour. Some arrive.
Understanding that changed how I work. In colour, you can lean on the story a red lip tells. In monochrome, a red lip is just a dark shape - so the story has to come from somewhere else. The tilt of the chin. The tension in a jaw. Whether your gaze lands on the lens or two inches behind it. My first studio photographer used to say "give me the thought, not the face," and I have repeated that to myself on every set since.
It also changed how I see my own portfolio. The images I keep are never the prettiest ones - they're the ones with the clearest intention. One idea per frame, held all the way through the shutter.
People ask if I mind that my best-known work has no colour in it. I don't. Colour is weather; structure is climate. I'd rather be climate.