Black and white
Germany, Munich, parc, Jun 2023
Summer is here.
It's hot outside and sunny.
In the parks the predominant color is green. Green is not so my color. Then I prefer a black and white picture. It is more expressive.
This could be the beginning of a project: 30 days of black and white pictures. When the color is gone the light, the composition and the contrast is even more important.
Staying curious is important........
These pictures are impressions of the winter 2020/2021.
What is worth doing at all, is worth doing on a daily basis.
My walks with my camera are precious.
During summer time everybody can surf the ice river, but when it’s freezing cold it’s an act of heroes. Jumping into this cold river during winter surely strengthens the immune system, even though I think these men don’t waste a thought on it. They want to be on top of the water as long as possible. The next man is waiting already to jump and surf. There is no moment of hesitation. As soon as a surfer is under water, the waves carry him away and the next one is already in the wild water.
There are always enough spectators, too.
The froth was white, the diving suits of the surfer were black. Some surfboards were white, too. The color picture and the black and white picture were rather close together.
I’ve been very often at this rather famous location, yet each time I discover a new perspective.
You can never jump into the same river. This is so true.
Yesterday I waited for the S-Bahn outside of the city. There was a construction in the fields. Nothing and nobody was really outstanding. I couldn’t spot out a subject matter I wanted to focus on. Nevertheless I took a couple of pictures. At home I edited them.
I think that the blur shows the atmosphere there very well. Also black and white fits very well.
Yesterday I flipped through old pictures. I was looking for pictures that could be look great in black and white, perhaps even more interesting than in color.
I was looking for true white in a picture and true black. This is one of the secrets, I think. If there is no black and no white in a picture one gets a picture with different shapes of grey. I looked also for empty space. Blurriness looks great in black and white pictures.
Each of these pictures above has a clear subject matter. The pictures are all taken during trips. The first one was taken in the US, the second one in France, the third one in Italy and the forth one in the US again.
Diving into the past is fun, but whenever I do this I feel the urge to create new pictures rather soon.
Another good question is what composition has the picture. Is there a frame within the picture? How much space takes the main subject matter? Can one realize the 1/3 rule?
Ideas for new pictures arise as soon as one is working on pictures. Ideas fade away when doing nothing. It always requires a certain amount of courage to create. The risk is low, but there. Not every picture is an eye catcher. Many, many pictures are average, yet it’s good advice to keep working. To educate the eye and to develop taste takes time and exercise.
This picture was taken 2019 in a rose garden.
Today I flipped through old picture to find pictures with high contrast. Almost all pictures look great in black and white when there is contrast. Blurriness and sharpness add something interesting to any picture, especially to black and white ones. If color is missing other visual tools become more important.
One of my fav tools is empty space. Everything is so crowded today. Empty space is true luxury. It gives time to relax. It makes the subject matter stand out.
Editing pictures is a long or shorter process. At the end I’m always surprised about the result.
Colors become grey if one converts a color picture in to a b+w one. So, when I like to take a b+w picture I look for dark or bright elements. The dark part in the above picture is the hut and the bushes and trees behind it. The place looks abandoned even though this is probably not the case. It’s winter time and most people hide in their homes. There is nothing to do in the fields.
An interesting b+w picture is more than a conversion of a color picture.
This picture was taken while I was sitting in the train to Berlin. From time to time I looked out of the window. One must be fast to capture a scenery when in a fast train. I love the blurriness as it’s a hint of the speed. The train had speed, but even faster runs the time.
The green of the grass in the foreground was very green. It was distracting. More interesting is the hut close to the woods. It shows human traces. One can sense the work that has to be done there.
In January I’ll focus on black and white images. January is a perfect month for this project, because colors in nature are reduced during winter time. The stems of the trees are dark brown, almost black. There are no leaves who could hide the dark skeleton. Snow is white. Many days are simply grey. People dress in dark colors.
When color as a medium to tell something is missing, one must focus on composition and contrast. Exactly this is my intention for the next months. I’m going to explore composition. There are a lot of subject matters, I’ll stick to asanas. This topic still excites me.
Does anybody like to join?