Author: stevenjwillard

Who do you trust?

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

 

James in the RV © Steven Willard

I won’t trouble with the backstory here, except to say that I needed a place to live and had concluded my best option was a used RV. I live in Connecticut but figured I would find the best deal either in the South or in the sunny Southwest where rust wasn’t likely to be an issue.

I met James on the internet when I saw the RV he was selling. We emailed back and forth then spoke at some length on the phone. The catch was that I was in Connecticut and he was in California. If I wanted to buy his RV I was going to have to trust the voice on the phone; take a leap of faith and fly out to California, which is what I did. I needn’t have worried. James is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, his family is lovely, and the RV was exactly as he described it. I drove it back to Connecticut and have been living in it for three years with no problems.

Sometimes you just have to have faith.

Visit my blog at https://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

Richmond Revisited-Again

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Richmond Revisited © Steven Willard

At my own blog http://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com I recently posted a photograph that I mined from images taken last December. In that post I took the opportunity to walk through the basic steps used to arrive at the final color image. Here is the monochrome rendering. Much as I like black and white, this is one instance where I prefer the color, but it is interesting-at least to me-how it holds up to the conversion, and how the two versions are dependent on different aspects of the image. I may print them both and hang them side by side just as an exercise.

Ahead of the storm

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Ahead of the storm © Steven Willard

 

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves,

and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever

explaining things to them.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

Please visit my blog https://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

The Long Goodbye

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

The Long Goodbye © Steven Willard

The “sweet sorrow” of parting. We never know what might come next, we only know what we will be missing. There is sorrow enough in that.

Please visit my blog at http://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

Tender Touch

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Pond, Bridgewater, Connecticut © Steven Willard

The benefit of living in a place for years is that you get to see the same places under many different circumstances as the light changes with the seasons.

I’ve watched this pond with its surrounding trees as I have driven by countless times, but it was this particular time when the bare branches revealed what I hadn’t seen before; the two trees at the far end reaching out to touch each other. Too much? What do we really know about trees?

Please visit me at http://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

Steven R

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Steven R

There is some debate about whether or not a portrait should show the eyes to be successful. I guess I come down on the side that says, “it depends”.

I hope you will visit my blog at http://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

 

Joseph Conrad

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Joseph Conrad, Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut © Steven Willard

Walking down the paths of Mystic Seaport Museum, it’s easy to imagine another time. A time when young men (mostly) often dreamed of going to sea to reinvent themselves. It didn’t always turn out the way they hoped. As I walked towards the Conrad all I could see was her tops. She looked like a ship, hull down in a sea of shingles.

Visit my blog at http://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com