Who doesn’t love the simple things in life? A shot of espresso in the morning, music, sunshine, a smile of a loved one, a walk with them holding hands, dipping toes in water or a kind word. I do. The simple things in life complete me.

I’ve recently had a look at the photographs from last summer (, I guess it’s my wedding photography break routine around Christmas time), and came across the album on my mobile which is dedicated to a monochrome app called Lenka. It’s all about the aforementioned simplicity here and what I love about it is the “what you see is what you get” approach. No messing around with filters (, which take longer to “choose” than actually to take the picture), basic view and design. It’s minimal. Like “dunes-desert” minimal it’s a pleasure to use. There’s more to it though. Created by Kevin Abosch, an atelier, the app is responsive, feels familiar because of its plain design and then, finally, there are the outputs. I have printed from Lenka and will still, they’re that good! The tonality is spot on right off the bat, at least for me and the gentle amount of grain reminds me of those shoe boxes I still use to keep my precious memories from the old days.

Less is more! Stripped off distractions there is no selfie mode as the app only uses the back camera, no editing (allowed), no post shooting time wasting but you can (and should) of course share the images to Instagram, Facebook and send them via iMessage or email. And then there’s this feature of even stripping the app from focusing - the app does it for you! See something, snap, move onto the next shot. Focus on composition and light, not on focusing. For me a win win!

The app is available for both iOS and Android. See the iOS description of the app here.

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Revisiting summer in monochrome mobile