CBWC: All About Nature
From the backyard and the mass of feeders intended to bring the wild things here to the deserts of Arizona.
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Categories: #animals, #Birds, #Birds, #black-&-white-photography, #CBWC, #gallery, #GarryArmstrong, #Photography, Anecdote, Arizona, Cee's Photo Challenge
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
There’s something about monotone photos that seems to highlight the subject so effectively, although I don’t know why that would be. These are all fabulous, and they just go to show you don’t always need a blaze of colour to show nature at it’s best. 🙂
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My thinking on this — and I have been thinking about this — is that in a color photo, the color itself is a “thing.” An object. I’ve taken a lot of pictures where the color WAS the subject and the reason for the photograph. But when you work in monochrome, what you see is what you see. It’s a not about the color, or tones. It’s all texture, shadows, shapes and form. It’s angularity. Geometry.
So I think that in many ways, monochrome is a more “pure” kind of photography, but sometimes color IS the thing and IS the reason. Sometimes, you can make the same picture “speak” in two voices. All you need — usually — is the ability to look at it in different ways. And the ruthless ability to crop the photo to show what’s important in that context.
Am I making any sense?
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Yes you are making complete sense, Marilyn. I think you’ve perfectly expressed exactly what I had been grappling with on the difference between mono and colour. You’re right, mono is a more pure kind of photography, and I suppose in that case you could almost see it as more honest. 🙂
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Except when color is the most important part of the photo. I don’t like flowers,sunsets, or sunrises in black & white because they are all about color. Architecture, cityscapes, rocks, some (but not all) landscapes and anything where texture is more important than color usually work better in monochrome. We all use color because we can. It’s automatic for most of us. I have one camera I can set up using two cards, so if I can figure out how to do it, I could set it to take the same shots in both. I’m just flummoxed by the menu in the camera which is more complicated than my brain.
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Definitely horses for courses then, and without doubt both types of photography have their merits and uses. I think I’d be scared stiff of your camera though! 🙂
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I’m sometimes scared stiff of my cameras too. I liked them better when they were simpler and didn’t have dozens of weird little selections in the menu, most of which we not only never use, but don’t even know what they do. It’s a big problem with modern cameras. I have at least two cameras that would be great if I could figure out how they work. I finally gave up trying. There’s the menu and all those tiny little buttons that DO things, but I don’t know what they do or are supposed to do or WHY I would want to use them. Sometimes, you touch something entirely accidentally and suddenly, the camera won’t work. It’s absurd since I’ve been taking pictures for more than 50 years, but they’ve taken the simple things and made them far more complicated than anyone needs them to be. I don’t know anyone who knows what all the stuff in their camera memories do unless they work in the industry.
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I know exactly what you mean. It’s almost as though these days they add all sorts of gizmos and buttons no-one needs need just because they can – and I guess that’s how they justify bringing out new, ‘improved’ models. I once had a Canon F1 and that was enough for me! 🙂
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Garry I really like that huge rock outcropping. 😀 😀 Marilyn, you birds are fun as always 😀
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Thank you! That’s Scorpion Gulch, one of the desert areas near Phoenix. Lot of lava flows and a beautiful big sky. I loved it, but it’s too hot and dry in the summer. GREAT in the winter, though!
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Nice, the cacti picture is particularly good in B & W.
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Thank you. It was a silhouette, so I hoped it would work in monochrome.
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