Black and White
I am still in my black and white period. Though I do feel a brightening.
I think subject matter has a lot to do with the success of monochrome images. With colour it is a much simpler equation. With black and white it is all about form and structure and light.
Though I still remember when we only had black and white film as an option.
It is cold. Almost all colour has leeched from the landscape. The fields are in sepia now. We have a lot of wind out here on the prairies lately. After a summer with less wind than usual. It is the epitome of lonely: this howling cold wind.
I got really dark there for a bit.
Now I feel a little colour creeping in.
( I have been working on bread and pasta to create images for the marketing team at work) so here is one of those. Though I am not ready to leave the extreme discipline of monochrome yet.
I need to stay very disciplined to see my plan through. This omicron is everywhere down here. I think it is just a matter of putting on our life jackets and riding it out. These surges are going to keep returning – we need to adapt as best we can. If ever there was a case for building a network of support this would be it. Being a working single parent with school age kids must be so hard, with so much illness wreaking havoc. We need to gather around our little families and BE the village. And so I will.
And a moment of full barn colour before I dip back down again.
I hope you are well. ( such a loaded statement these days!).
Cecilia
60 Comments on “Black and White”
Leave a Reply
JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER:
DO A LITTLE SHOPPING:
Thank You So Much For Your Kind Help with Maintaining This Blog
thekitchensgarden 
My first love has always been black and white. I don’t have a darkroom now, and I miss it terribly!
I miss my darkroom too – I had all my old dads gear for years but it has all fallen through the cracks of time and travel. Have a great day!
My seven year old is sitting here with me as I read your post. She really likes the picture of the pasta. She says the bottom pile of noodles looks like an owl and the top one looks like a cat.
Tell her that is wonderful!! Thank you! I bet she is a great interpreter of clouds!!
Welcome home, c, and may warmth follow you.
C, may I have your permission to use (with credit and ping back) the B&W icy limb photo, please?
Yes! Of course you can Misky darling – you always have my permission!
Thank you, luv. I’ll pop a link here when it’s up.
All rights preserved. Thanks again. I love that photo, c. https://misky.uk/2022/01/09/day-9-on-ice/
Cecilia, these photos are simply gorgeous. They evoke emotions under the surface. The barely perceptible color in the wheat flour brings such a sense of longing for more. The messy tangle of noodles set against the still curved, but harder lines of the cutting tool gives a sense of life’s chaos and the longed-for order…. I just LOVE this sampling of still-life photos!! You have so many talents!! Thank you for sharing them with us!
I so agree with Michelle that your photos are wonderful! Showing yet another of your many talents Celi! So happy to be on this journey with you and the Fellowship!
Thank you Diane and Michelle!
You are most welcome! –
That first drop of bench flour onto my counter is one of my favorite recurring images. The pattern is ever changing.
Lovely pictures, especially the cat and pasta (cloud and black and white). That rabbit looks like she’s moved into the house!
Having spent years (literally) in the dark room, I wouldn’t trade it for Photoshop – I can do everything and a lot more without the very dangerous and polluting chemicals and darkness. Relatively speaking it’s a lot cheaper too!
I was thinking the same thing about Nelson, Mad! It looks like she has moved into the house, at least part time anyway! 🙂
She is suddenly UNDERFOOT! The dogs are no longer interested in her
lol C, it was only a matter of time before she – like all the furred&fearhered residents at your place – became comfortable in your lovely presence. (I found my bun to be quite aware of one’s need for solace❤️) much love, D
I loved the solitude. Photoshop is pretty expensive now too! I can’t afford it the monthly fee now. However I do use Snapseed for my phone images / it is not too bad!
You are not wrong about the price of Photoshop, though film and processing per job (in the 90s) used to cost me about £200, which is considerably more.
Wow. And not sure where I would even find the chemicals and paper now. We used to buy them from the camera shop in town – all
Those shops are gone now.
I know – there used to be camera and photographic shops in most towns, but now you need to be in a big city. London used to have lots of shops for professionals, along with a good selection of laboratories for processing, but most have gone now. I remember going into Process Supplies (off Farringdon Road), about 10 years ago and they were rationing the amount of 120 film that one could buy – 3 rolls per person! Incredible! I suppose the stuff that is still being made is available online and that’s what’s caused the demise of shops.
Wow, MD I haven’t thought about 120/220 films in years. I used to own (wish I still did) a Hasselblad 500C/M with a 120/220 back. Those were the days and yes professional film development cost a bunch back in the 70s as well.
I had 2 Mamiya RZ 6X7 cameras – by 1999 I hadn’t used either for several years and sold them in order to buy a G4 Mac. That’s long gone too, but I don’t regret selling the cameras, they’d be worth a lot less now. One of the most amazing innovations this century (aside from digital cameras) is the ability to shoot tethered to a computer. You can see the image on a large screen before taking a picture. That really beats peering into a 10X8 camera with a dark cloth and looking at the screen upside down! On the negative side, there’s no longer an excuse for a 2 hour lunch (with a client), while the film is being processed.
I kind of like the idea of a two hour lunch!
Ha ha – me too! That’s why I love Spain so much – a two hour lunch is normal.
I want to live in Spain too! Here they get their lunch at drive in windows!
There is a commercial movement towards a more Northern European way of life, but there’s definitely still a better appreciation of life, food and friends. Tourists sometimes get frustrated by waiters who leave them alone and let them sit at a table for 2 hours over a relaxed lunch, but I really enjoy it – I never have a problem getting a carajillo or another glass of wine 😉
Yes! But the apprehension was magic! Not knowing what you had I the tank!! No one gets that now!!
Oh though, I loved watching the image come to life in my proofs floating in the tray of the developer, hoping that I got the shot I wanted. But, MD is right as the new photo technology is amazing. But, I do miss my darkroom…
Yes! Never quite knowing what you had was a big part of working in film.
Great Photos. I especially like the roosters. You need to frame taht one! 🙂
Thank you!
I have loved following these images on Instagram lately, but to be honest, to see smidgens of color pop in here is wonderful. Barn birds in color are like a long awaited peak at the sun appearing through the clouds. Beautiful.
That is lovely!! Thank you!
Pingback: Day 9: On Ice – It's Still Life
Wow! The barn colour is amazing but there is a clarity to black and while that only shows in starkness. Chris
Hi there Chris! So it does!
I always feel that black and white photos reveal the essence of its subject.
I used to subscribe to the lovely magazine Communication Arts, and there was a fantastic photographer who ran promotional ads for himself. He worked exclusively in black and white, and claimed that he was so well qualified because he’d been born and grew up in North Dakota. I thought that was so funny…and probably true. I love black and white the best of all. It feels like truth as opposed to the omnipresent mirror. It requires an eye, not just a good smart phone. And you have a marvelous eye! I’m glad you are coming back a bit. That’s good news. x
It is all about the horizons!!
Bunny ♥♥♥ Stay warm, miss c…..
You too miss T
I love, love, love your photographs. Especially the last one of your multicolored feathered friends. I also really like the black and white ones as well. That’s sort of how life is, some things are in black and white, periods of time, experiences, etc and other things, are in full technicolor. Shouldn’t have one thing with out the other, it gives a person perspective.
So it does!! Hey there Victoria!
I love the black&white. It makes us pay closer attention to detail. Phasing up to a bit of color makes a statement as well. Stunning photos.
I am enjoying the challenge
The black & white is gorgeous, but my personal favourite is where there is just the smallest bit of colour, as if a warm wind has blown over something frozen and caused a very slight melting of the frost. Not full colour, too saturated, but just those little touches. The dough and rolling pin… Stay warm, safe and well, Miss C.
Yes! I like that one too. It is like a promise.
Excellent photo story succession from b&w to colour… I feel it. Right now I really have the urge to go make ravioli even though I’ve never done it before!
Lovely images, especially the crystal on branches. My husband loves the old “film noir” for their images, shadows and angles. Nothing quite like them. He used to have a dark room here in the house. He was a part-time wedding photographer who took 15 rolls of film of 36. We’d spend days putting the negatives in sleeves. All that is changed. Just as someone above said, no more labs! Everything’s digital.
Indeed it is and didital is weirdly disposable. Having a good print is still important I think.
Being in your black and white period is far better than having the blues. I suffer from this occasionally. As a part-time author, I feel blue looking at Nikki The Greek, Leaving Ikaria peering at me from my PC screen. There are 60,000 words so far and plenty more to finish the story of the Greek man who robbed all of his partners
Well, we don’t want the Blues then / though Picassos Blue Period was startling.
Have a;ways loved the black-and-white. It points to the story behind the photo . . . colour just draws attention to itself . . . Yours truly bring ‘what is’ to us . . .
Yes! Beautifully said Eha
These are stunning. And the way you arranged them, the black and white slowing morphing into (some) color is amazing. And I remember when developing color photos was exorbitantly expensive. Sending love as your world brightens.
Beautiful! I am a huge fan of monochrome/b&w pics! 😍
And those delectable little parcels are gorgeous, very inviting! I now have a hankering for ravioli!
Stay well, Celi and co
💕
I love black & white. There is something so honest about it. But the chickens and Mr Flowers needed to be in color. They make me smile. And by gosh, there is not a whole lot of smiles to be had here either. Everyone is in the process of some kind of sick – getting, being, recovering down here in Texas. But the books must go on….
Interesting that creating with flour is bringing the colour back into your life (it being ‘the staff of life’ and all…)
But your rolling pin is fairly bursting with life and love – exuding a life of experience, a life filled with love, in all of its glorious hues and texture. SO BEAUTIFUL, so hopeful. Life WILL carry on, dear C❤️
Yes it will!