© Armando Bellmas

I rarely shoot black and white anymore, film or digital. Work never calls for it and, really, I love colors and color photography so much that it’s what I prefer to shoot. However, this monochrome beauty of a photograph was made just a few weeks ago on a bustling Friday evening in the NoDa District of Charlotte. It captures the scene perfectly.

I believe that making the time to see and shoot in different ways — black and white if you shoot color, large format if you shoot digitally, digital if you shoot large format, studio if you shoot street, strobes if you shoot natural light, etc. — only makes your vision and your work better. So sometimes what I prefer gets put on the backburner for a bit while I push myself ever forward by seeing and shooting differently.

When was the last time you tried something different with your work?