Black and white photography

They say it's important in photography to be able to "see" in black and white.  Lately I've been experimenting with this "seeing" exercise.  It isn't easy.  There is a quote about black and white photography that I really like:  "When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes.  But when you photograph people in B&W you photograph their souls" (Ted Grant). I wonder if this holds true for buildings as well.

 

Beauty in the ordinary

I found these boxes piled up against a building and thought the texture they created was beautiful.  I think they're used for trapping.

Morning walk

A morning walk yielded some photos:

"The pictures are there, and you just take them."

Robert Capa

A dog

Just too cute to resist:

Bugs

"Do what we can, summer will have its flies".  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Well ... they're not flies, but close.

Rust

One of my favourite photographic subjects is rust.  I love the colours and textures.  I love to go exploring with my camera and finding beauty in the ordinary, mundane things that I find in friend's yards.

 

 


“Nature holds the beautiful, for the artist who has the insight to extract it. Thus, beauty lies even in humble, perhaps ugly things, and the ideal, which bypasses or improves on nature, may not be truly beautiful in the end.”

Albrect Durer.

My garden, up close

My favourite time to be in the flower garden is early in the morning.  My favourite subject is the small spots that bring out the beauty of the garden that we rarely see unless we look closely.

 "If you take the time to really look at simple things you will come to realize that they really are beautiful."  Anon.

Sunsets

I rarely photograph the sunset.  When I first began this hobby, I snapped sunsets all the time - partly because I wasn't yet seeing all the photographic material around me, and partly because that's what everyone does.  Now, I don't shoot them as often because...that's what everyone does.  But, I noticed that during this past month, I have photographed the sunset on several occasions, so it seems like a good time to share them.

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure.  

There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open."

Jawaharlal Nehru

Wild flowers

I enjoy walking.  The problem is that if I take along my camera, I end up shooting instead of walking.  Sometimes I just indulge myself and can easily spend hours shooting the wild flowers along the road.

 

I walk, I look, I see, I stop, I photograph.

Leon Levinstein

Used book sale

I am a sucker for old books.   I love the smell and feel of them (unless they're moldy - then not so much).  I took my camera along to one such sale and found a few treasures.

I did not set this up - I smiled when I came across these old books set on top of a table of pop fiction.  It made me think, "The cream rises to the top."

 
These bindings are not old, but who can resist the classics?


 


"I have some friends, some honest friends, and honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, a book that's not too new."

Robert W. Service