Tag Archives: black and white photography

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Black & White or Monochrome

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Anne, our Challenge host this week, instructs, “Black and white is the result of only using black or white and ‘shades of’. The ‘shades of’ meaning grayscale… Monochrome photos contain variations of only one color and nothing else. Meaning, different shades of one color like blue, red, green, etc.” My side-by-side comparison of Fern Frost gives you the ability to see what you think of the two. Do they seem to evoke different moods, different levels of curiosity?

There is a real challenge in finding subjects that are monochrome. I must say that I don’t often look for compositions or subjects that feature color as their distinguishing attraction. The LA Challenge of primary colors was one that my photo files just couldn’t address. If only GREEN were a primary color!

Thanks for the challenge, Anne, and for inspiring me to look at color composition differently!

Lens-Artist Photo Challenge: Shadows and Reflections in Monochrome

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Patti sets up an awesome challenge this week and opens with a photo that blew my socks off! Took me a while to find a new pair of socks and venture out with my camera. Actually, it wasn’t so much the socks that caused the delay as it was the weather. You see, shadows and reflections require some strong light, and I happen to live in Oregon…and it’s February still. So when the late afternoon sun came through my windows today, I grabbed the camera to see if I could capture some of the magic thrown off by the nuclear fusion going on 93 million miles away. I set my Canon to Monochrome and started looking around. Here’s what I found:

I don’t have any inspirational quotes or deep philosophies to go with this challenge. I just want to share the fun and gratitude of getting up and finding something beautiful close by. Light is beautiful. I’m sure you Lens-Artists agree!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Curves

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“Beauty: it curves, curves are beauty.”
― James Joyce

“Curves are so emotional.” ― Piet Mondrian

“My live is one long curve, full of turning points.”
― Pierre Trudeau

The shape of a curve – elegant, delicate, graceful – is so very pleasing to my eye. In calligraphy, cursive is the romantic way to write. All those curvy embellishments just beg you to dawdle lovingly over every letter. Curves are about pleasure, I think. In Nature or in man-made objects, curves lend a sense of the exotic. No wonder I find so many examples in my photos! Here’s a gallery of images, strung together like a love letter in script. I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks to Ann-Christine for delighting us with this challenge theme. Click HERE to view her post and participate.

Lens-Artist Photo Challenge: Change

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“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ― James Baldwin

‘Progress’ in our nation has for too long been confused with ‘Growth’; I see the two as different, almost incompatible, since progress means, or should mean, change for the better – toward social justice, a livable and open world, equal opportunity and affirmative action for all forms of life. And I mean all forms, not merely the human. The grizzly, the wolf, the rattlesnake, the condor, the coyote, the crocodile, whatever, each and every species has as much right to be here as we do.”
― Edward Abbey

“Oh, there been times that I thought
I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able, to carry on

It’s been a long
A long time coming
But I know a change gonna come
Oh, yes it will”
― Sam Cooke

Thank you to Johnbo for hosting this week’s Challenge.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Feet and Shoes

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“All walking is discovery. On foot we take the time to see things whole.”
~ Hal Borland

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair”
~ Khalil Gibran

“Because the human history is the history of shoes.
The history of places where we ever tread and stand.”
~ Stebby Julionatan

First shoes barely get any wear. I love them for their innocence, their precious smallness, and all the potential of a journey in miniature, striving for growth.

Worn shoes have history. I love them for the stories they could tell, for the job well done, for the weariness and wisdom of travel.

I love this theme for its direct simplicity. Photos of feet and shoes are individual and unique. They tell a personal story, but they are usually whimsical and shy while doing it. Isn’t it the somewhat awkward person who looks at their feet while talking? So now you’ve seen my feet and my shoe photo collection. Now I put my feet up and take a load off.

Thank you to Ann-Christine for this delightful challenge! Please visit her post to see some really elegant and unusual shoes from Sweden plus some adorable pudgy toes.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Black and White

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It’s really been a joy to participate in the Lens-Artists Photo Challenges over time. I have “met” so many interesting bloggers and “traveled” to so many fascinating places. And I’ve learned something about technique and artistry along the way. This week, the guest host is Anne Sandler. Her header image took my breath away, and then she totally schooled me on processing black and white photographs! Visit her post HERE.

I am less than a novice when it comes to processing. I use the very rudimentary tools that came with my camera. I’ve never even used Photoshop. The texture and tone and clarity that Anne achieves is truly stunning. What I know about Black and White is that I like it for portraits and for “art”. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Geometry

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“There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.” ― Pythagoras

What is the shortest distance between two points? What is the shortest distance between two people? What is the angle of intersection when you are happy? And when you are lonely?

“He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of a probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance”
― Dominic Miller, “The Shape of My Heart”

How do you build something structurally sound to house kindness, joy, courage, love, resilience? In a Universe of fact and feeling, of truth and spirit, how do you dwell in the spaces outlined by a complexity of ideas?

Aldo Leopold Shack

Geometry was my favorite subject my freshman year of High School. I liked my teacher; I liked that this kind of math was narrative. I was brand new to the school and to the state. In my 14-year-old brain, I was trying to figure out so much about how the world worked and how I fit in it. I was confused by many things, but I could follow geometry step-by-step and prove something. By the end of Freshman year, I had gained confidence and made some friends. ‘Geometry’, to me, will always symbolize a description of complexity in the cosmos that seems ordered and friendly, mysterious and vast, but approachable.

Thank you to Patti for this Challenge theme!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Nostalgic

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“The past is a candle at great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you.”
― Amy Bloom

“Memory believes before knowing remembers.”
― William Faulkner

Thanks to Tina for her challenge “to look backward for a while” with this theme.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Waiting

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In the animal kingdom, humans are a species with a highly developed sense of time. We know past, present, and future and often try to imagine time frames that dwarf our own life spans. 

Waiting, the theme for this week’s Photo Challenge, implies expectations of future events. “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop…” or for the adventure to begin. When waiting seems like a waste of time, it’s because the thing to come is more valuable to you than the present moment. However, if you look at it another way, the present moment is the only real moment and therefore more valuable.

To wait well and gracefully may be to enjoy the present moment and allow the future moment to unfold “all in due time”. 

 

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Monochrome

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For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #70, Patti invites to explore the world of monochrome–which includes black and white and sepia, as well as different shades of one color.

“…emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Color is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn’t necessarily reach the heart.” – Kim Hunter

I love the drama of a really good monochrome shot. 

To see in color is a delight for the eye, but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul – Andri Cauldwell

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”
― Ted Grant

“Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.” – Eliott Erwitt

“Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected” – Robert Frank