30 Days, One Lens — A Month Shooting Only a 35mm Prime in Black & White

This June I’m stripping my kit down to a single tool: a 35mm prime. For thirty days I’ll shoot only in black and white, and use that one focal length to explore portraits, landscapes, street scenes, and more experimental ideas. The constraints are deliberate — a way to sharpen decisions, deepen observation, and push creativity through limits rather than options.

Working with a 35mm forces intimacy and intention. It asks me to move my feet, to choose angles and moments rather than rely on zoom. For portraits it invites connection: a balance between subject and environment that reveals more than a tight headshot can. On the street it encourages immersion, catching gestures and collisions of light that a longer lens might isolate. For landscapes it’s a reminder that wide doesn’t always mean expansive glass; it’s about composition, foreground, and the textures revealed in monochrome.

Shooting only black and white simplifies the visual language. Removing color makes me listen to shape, contrast, and tone — to shadows that define form and highlights that tell a scene’s mood. It turns ordinary light into narrative and gives the small details weight: the crinkle of a hand, the curve of a rooftop, the grain of a road under rain.

I’m excited to see what emerges from this focused experiment. Limitation can be freeing: it clarifies what matters and exposes opportunities I might otherwise miss. I’ll share the best frames and the discoveries they bring — the visual answers to what happens when you commit to one lens and one palette for a month.