Tag Archives: black & white photography
Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside
UW Madison Arboretum – inside
We’ve been traveling from Milwaukee to Madison for the last three weeks to take in some of the Winter Enrichment courses offered at the UW Madison Arboretum. Unfortunately, it has been blasted cold each week, so we haven’t been out hiking the trails. Someone set up this little display of prairie grasses in the south window of the visitor’s center, and the sun shining in teased me with memories of warm autumn days smelling dried grass. In the deep freeze of winter, it’s nice to have some plant life taking up residence INSIDE.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Eerie
The most eerie place in town is the abandoned poor farm, insane asylum, and tuberculosis sanitorium on the Milwaukee County Grounds. Even more eerie, this place is now in development and the largest chunk of green space we had is now becoming a Technology and Innovation Center (read: big, modern buildings and roads). My blog post and photos of this place can be found HERE. Sample photos:
Wordless Wednesday: Work Shoes Part 2
* for back story about the owner of these shoes, see Wednesday Words: For Steve
* scheduling this post for Wednesday, August 21 – my birthday. I’m at work today, too. Maybe next week I’ll show you my shoes…and you can show me yours!
Weekly Photo Challenge: One Shot, Two Ways
This photo challenge is actually quite a useful meditation on perspective. I had thought about my options in taking up this challenge, ranging from skipping it altogether because it’s not an obligation, to spreading it out over a whole week to give me time to find something I love dearly enough to photograph it on purpose. I had thought about visiting the place where Steve & I had our first date, Glacial Park, while on my way to visit my kids back in Illinois. That is a place dear to my heart, and closer to being worthy of Jeff Sinon’s incredible nature photos of New Hampshire (I’m a big fan and follower. Do check him out!). But it would mean not posting until at least a few days from now. I browsed around the Internet for a while and lit upon a few threads that interested me. What is it that catches my attention? Perspective. I read a bit about Marfan syndrome. Ever meditate on how perspective changes quality of life and the level of fear you feel about something potentially life-threatening? I read about an American couple jailed in Qatar under suspicion of murdering their adopted daughter. The perspective on adoption is quite different in Muslim countries. How you think and feel about something is altered dramatically based on where you stand. I began to take that idea closer to home.
My partner, Steve, owns and operates an online book business. I might consider Scholar & Poet Books to be the “other woman” in our relationship. I don’t feel about her the same way that Steve does. To him, she represents his autonomy; she is a huge financial asset, and endlessly fascinating. To me, she is a dominating presence that crowds me out of closet space and Steve’s attention. She is also somewhat boring to me, as she doesn’t touch or speak. But I would like to make friends with her. I would like a different perspective on her. So I chose her for my subject.
I don’t know if you feel you only get one shot at life, one shot at any given problem. I do know that there are always at least two ways to take it on. Perspective. You can get a different one by moving just a little. It’s well within your range of powers.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreshadow
Interesting theme….had to think a bit on this one, but I’ve decided to post a shot that I took during the introductory photo class that I got with the purchase of my camera last September. Literally the first digital pictures I ever took, foreshadowing many years of happy clicking and editing, right?! It suits, I think.
Weekly Photo Challenge: The World Through Your Eyes
This week’s photo challenge was a tough one for me. The “assignment” was to show “a visual interpretation of one’s vision. A story, captured in a frame.” This seems to me to be something close to photojournalism. I think black and white. I think action, or a reference to action. I look through my portfolio, and most of what I have is nature portraiture and still life. The world through my eyes would seem posed, maybe even inert. Hmmm. This IS a challenge. In order to capture a story, I would have to show more of a scene, not just a subject. The backdrop, the context. That would probably mean I have to be more ready with my camera, “quicker on the draw”, so to speak. I will keep that in mind. Tomorrow, I go to my daughter’s Bridal Shower, and I intend to bring my camera. Maybe I can practice this assignment in that setting. For now, I will give you my best approximation at photojournalism, taken last October on our adventure to “Metaphorical Maine” (which actually turned out to be Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio). Here ’tis:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern
This week’s photo challenge theme is Pattern. Visually, this is a very strong subject in photography and has been illustrated in countless dramatic and stunning ways by much more talented artists than I. But what an interesting philosophical theme as well! Are patterns created by humans, or are they natural? Humans have a special knack for identifying and arranging patterns as well as re-creating, extending, and imposing them on all kinds of things. Is that a function of our orderly brains, our consciousness? Of course, there are also examples of patterns in nature….but, again, the concept of ‘pattern’ is something we invented. It wasn’t as if a DNA string said to itself, “I think I’ll create a pattern.” It was a human who saw what was in front of him/her and said, “Eureka! A pattern!” So, pattern…is it a real phenomenon or a construct of our consciousness? Discuss. (or just look at the pictures!)
Wordless Wednesday: Jazzy
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scillagrace 
