Close to where we went whitewater rafting, there were several old buildings, albeit with modern graffiti. I think monochrome gives it the retro feel it deserves.
I don’t know who, if anyone, formally hosts Monochrome Monday, but I’m playing this week. The proof is right here in black and white. 🥰
I’ll be driving back to Arizona this morning, planning a detour through Joshua Tree National Park to see what it looks like this time of year and after all the rain. Report and photos to follow of course. 😊
For the first Lens-Artists Challenge in February, Patti’s looking for shadows a/o reflections but in monochrome. Although we tend to think of monochrome as photos in black and white, strictly speaking:
A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white. ~Wikipedia
So let me start out with an example of monochrome that isn’t black and white/greyscale. It’s also an example of both shadows and reflections.
I love reflections so let’s start with those. Reflections can show a true picture of the thing being reflected or a distorted one, something to remember when reflecting on people and situations. Here I’m reflecting on the reflections experienced in Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Room in Chicago’s WNDR Museum, a museum filled with experiential exhibits. It was a mind-bending experience to be surrounded by so many reflections and I would have loved to have spent more than the minute or minute-and-a-half each person or group was allowed in the room.
I often enjoy reflecting over a cup of tea. Coffee with friends is a wonderful time but you don’t get reflections when the barista has created a work of beauty on top of my mocha. 🙂
A lake in Wyoming, one of my summer pleasures, provides both reflections and shadows, the latter from trees outside the photo.
Black-necked stilts continually supply wonderful reflections and they’re already in black and white. 🙂
This reflection in downtown Chicago illustrates one of my favorite things about skyscrapers. When we were in New York City some years ago, despite all the things there were to do and see, I was reminded once again that I prefer my canyon walls to be made of rock, not buildings!
You can’t leave Chicago without a look at the most interesting, iconic reflections in The Bean, as Chicagoans fondly call Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate. The Bean is endlessly engrossing. If you’re inclined to be helpful, you can, as I did, offer to take photos of people with The Bean behind them. I always enjoy doing that wherever I go.
Since it’s hard to top The Bean, both literally and figuratively, let’s switch to shadows, the first a winter view from my bedroom window in Illinois. The shadow in the middle/on the right is from part of the deck in the back of the house, the one on the left from our neighbor’s fence and trees.
from “Shadows” by Thomas Durfee
How much of earth’s beauty is due to its shadows!
The tree and the cliff and the far-floating cloudlet,
The uniform light intercepting and crossing,
Give manifold color and change to the landscape.
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I’ve shared this photo before but in color, a special capture where the deer and rabbit lined up just perfectly. I have so many photos of this view but none that ever were quite this good.
“My Shadow” ~Robert Lewis Stephenson
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
Patti, thanks for letting us have fun playing with shadows and reflections. Enjoy the weekend, everyone.
This week I’m sharing random photos I’ve come across again while browsing through files. Just haven’ some fun. This photo was taken on a foggy day in Wyoming at one of the three lakes on the (shared) property. The perfect reflections fascinated me. I used the Holga-ish edit in Picasa and then lightened it just slightly, which I think gives it an other-worldly feeling that I really like.
Anne Sandler is our guest hostess this week, (thanks, Anne), asking us for black and white photos. I remember when there were only black and white photos (as well as film and no digital.) So I’m taking a break from watching the replay of stage 13 of the Tour de France to gather some of my favorite black and white photos. Not true; I’m doing both. 🙂
Anne asked us to talk about our post-processing but I do virtually none and have no fancy editing apps. Here’s what I told her in response to her post:
“Some were taken with an iPhone and other than cropping, sometimes adding a frame or vignette, or making them black and white, I do very little. I don’t have Lightroom, Nik or any of those things. I use Picasa (free) or Pixlr (also free.)”
One of my favorite photos is this lone grocery cart in the middle of a flooded parking area in Naperville, Illinois.
A quiet moment in the Art Institute of Chicago, rendered in black and white. I love the sweep of the staircase and the single woman making her way down.
Shell and shadow on a beach at Cape May, New Jersey.
A foggy morning in Cape May. I waited for the ghostly carriage to come careening through the mist but I waited, thankfully, in vain.
If there’d been a deer nearby, I could have had a photo of a literal deer in the headlight but it, like the coach above, never materialized.
As always, thanks so much for visiting and for commenting. The conversation makes it all worthwhile because I love to know what you think, what you like, why you like it, and what it makes you think about.
Apparently WordPress has done one of its “let’s change things that aren’t broken and make it more difficult to do just routine posts” routines. When I went to WP admin, I didn’t find all the usual create new post/scheduled/trash/etc. At least I didn’t find “create new post”, which is what I wanted to do. Big fat sigh, masses of irritation, and another every day black and white for you for Friday. Enjoy!
I’ve wondered about the difference between black and white and monochrome, terms that seem to be used interchangeably. However, as I researched, I found out that’s only partially true. The differences and similarities are the same as those between Scotch and whisky/whiskey. Grab your glass and read along.
Grammerly points out the differences in the spelling of this type of alcohol:
Whisky (no e) refers to Scottish, Canadian, or Japanese grain spirits. Whiskey (with an e) refers to grain spirits distilled in Ireland and the United States.
Now if you picture the drink, no matter the spelling, as the large circle of a Venn diagram (Dan, I know you would draw this but I don’t know how to do it online). Scotch whisky (not wiskey) is made only in Scotland while adhering to certain laws. So Scotch is a small circle inside that large whisk(e)y one. Bourbon whiskey (not whisky) is made in the US and mostly from corn, so that’s a separate small circle in the large circle making up whisky/whiskey. So large whisk(e)y circle with small Scotch and bourbon circles inside it but not overlapping each other.
SO…all Scotch is whisky but not all whisk(e)y is Scotch and all bourbon is whisky but not all whisk(e)y is bourbon AND Scotch and bourbon aren’t the same.
Now I’ll cut to the chase, hoping you’re still enjoying this. All black and white (the Scotch or bourbon of photography) is monochrome, an image composed of one color (the whisky/whiskey of photography and the big Venn diagram circle.) But any image composed of one color that isn’t black and white (or the more accurate term “grayscale”) is monochrome. All black and white/greyscale (small circle) is monochrome (big circle) but all monochrome is not black and white.
So if anyone asks you the difference between black and white and monochrome, you can tell them black and white is Scotch, while monochrome is whisk(e)y. That should start a lively conversation. And that means my photos over the next few days are whisk(e)y, Scotch, and greyscale. Cheers or Slàinte mhath in Scottish. pronounced slan-ge-var. Go figure.
P.S. Today I’m taking my parents to get theirs (and my) second Covid vaccination shots (Moderna.) Tomorrow I’m taking my husband to get his first shot. These are blessings!! Hopefully we’ll have no side effects, but both mornings will be full so if I don’t get to your post right away, my apologies. You know I’ll always be back. 🙂
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