Have you ever wondered why black- and-white photography seems to highlight images in a way that colour never can? Joe Bowes’s First Impressions is a solo exhibition of black-and-white prints that convey the full drama of their subjects in a way that colour never can. They have a haunting simplicity and an edge, which compels the viewer to gaze at the image for far longer than they would were it in colour.

Joe moved to a village near Banbury with his family in the late 1970s when he was four and still lives in the area. He came to photography thanks to his grandfather, who gave him an old Yashica camera, but it wasn’t until the new millennium that he discovered that the world seemed more visual in black-and-white. He now uses medium format cameras and develops the work himself, printing his images in the darkroom on to fibre-based paper. By printing the work himself he can adjust the image, until he is confident that he has captured the emotion of a landscape rather than the view.

In exhibiting his pictures, he hopes that others will feel the same sense of awe that he felt when confronting the surroundings he has photographed so superbly.

Remains (pictured) is particularly atmospheric and leaves the viewer wondering just what those weathered posts standing proud within a watery home really are. Could they be tree stumps, or are they wooden supports of a building long decayed? Because Joe has captured their reflection in the water, this work is particularly atmospheric.

Reflections appear in many of his works, including Slats which celebrates the stripes of colour within a rock formation, and the water beneath. It’s one of many great pictures, which look particularly effective because they are depicted in black-and-white.

First Impressions continues at the O3 Gallery, at the Oxford Castle site, until October 18.