The Reader

The title should read “Never think you are finished for the day.”

The picture above, “The Reader” is an example of that. I’d spent the morning taking pictures while on a visit to the city of Bergen here in Norway. The weather was cloudy and it was raining, which will come as no surprise to people that live in Norway.

I’d kind of given up for the day after taking some lackluster shots while walking the streets. I was looking forward to lunch. We ended up at a restaurant famous for its Fish soup. While waiting for our order (It was lunchtime and the place was busy) I noticed a lady sitting by the window reading. The light was perfect. I slowly raised my Leica MP and shot off a couple of frames of Ilford XP2 between the shoulders of my friends sitting opposite me.

The result…well you can judge for yourselves.

So, as I said never think you are finished for the day 🙂

I Swear …

Black And White Photography, Laurie, Photography

… this is not an ad!

I Swear…..

I’d just returned home from my trip to Kentucky, and had spent the previous 3 hours riding in the rain. The light, and the shadows, and the raindrops on the windshield, stopped me in my (very wet, dripping )tracks. My bike was dripping, too, but it had brought me home safely and that, my friends, is all that really matters.

Come on over to Life on the Bike and Other Fab Things to see more images from my adventures on, and off, the bike. Please check out the blogs of my fellow contributors to Monochromia, too!

Weathered Shadows

Black And White Photography, Photography

Weathered clapboards with peeling paint and two paned windows.

Nikon D90, 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, extended to 48mm, 1/160 sec @ f/11, ISO 200

Weathered. Echoing with music … and footsteps of aspiring dancers.
Abandoned. Housing only shadows of times long past.

Visit visualventuring.com for more images from my camera.

Cold Water

Black And White Photography, Joerg, Photography

A very hot day in South France / 1995, Kiki was refreshing herself in the garden.
Pictures were taken with a Nikon 801 / analog – pure chance pictures,
because I had just arrived that moment with the camera in my hand.

More of my images can be seen at – The Things As They Are In Pictures

Innocence of Admiration

Black And White Photography

“There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Innocence of Admiration in Black and White

ss 1/640 f 5.6 ISO 400 60mm macro

white backdrop, natural light – full sun, manual settings, manual focus

You guessed it! The Gerber Daisy represents innocence in the Victorian language of flowers. To see this flower in color, visit my blog at Robyn Graham Photography. I would love to hear which you prefer – color or black and white. Do you find the Gerber Daisy worthy of admiration in the absence of color?

Have a fabulous weekend!

Blue Point Oysters

Black And White Photography, Joseph, Photography

Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujinon XF 35mm f/1.4 R Lens – 1/250 @ f/2.8

This is a photo of an old Oyster processing plant on the South Shore of Long Island. Look at the pile of shucked oysters on the work table. The shores around Long Island were so rich in oysters that crushed oyster shells were actually used for landfill in some parts of Manhattan (as mentioned in the movie “The Bone Collector”). I loved the way the light was beaming in through the skylights in the roof rafters.

Dried Leaves

Black And White Photography, Elina, Photography

I noticed these lovely end-of-summer leaves at the roadside and the next moment this scene turned into a black and white photo in my head.

Guest Post – Jean H. Herskovits

Black And White Photography, Photography

Jean H. Herskovits is featured in our fifth installment of our guest post series. Jean uses a Nikon D90 camera and also is an avid user of his mobile phone a Samsung Galaxy S1 for images.

My name is Jean and I was born in Bucharest, Romania. In 1969 my family moved from Romania to Paris, France when I was six years old..

I still speak Romanian and have recently spent six years in Bucharest as an expat, from 2004 to 2010. You can say I have two cultures, but the French one is predominant.

I bought my first camera which was a second-hand Olympus OM-1 with my first wages from a summer job, in 1985 or 86, and started shooting regularly.

If you are from a generation old enough to remember these silver paper times, you will probably also remember that B&W was way cheaper than color photography. So that’s how I started.

In my opinion, beauty in photography (as in all graphic arts) has to do with balance. Balance between shapes, colors, shadows, light and dark areas… Sometimes beauty comes from the deliberate absence of balance, but even then, balance is the keyword.

To me, the following picture has quite a good balance of shades and shapes.
I call it “Dim Swing”

More of my images can be seen at – Jean.H.Herskovits

La Rive Droite

Black And White Photography, Emilio, Photography

The Left Bank has become a rather expensive tourist trap nowadays so we are eating and drinking the afternoon away in a darkly lit bistro on La Rive Droite, The Right Bank. The cassoulet contains mutton, pork skin, and white beans. We are pouring a table wine from a country estate in St. Emilion when a short little man, with a rat-like visage similar in look to Roman Polanski sidles up to our table. He knows we are foreign by the way we are dressed and, probably, by the loudness of our party. We are, unashamedly, ugly Americans! Loud, rude, obnoxious. I am prone to blaming it on the wine consumed at such an early hour. Not quite 3 in the afternoon. He wants to show us Le Sacre Couer Basilica, Les Palais de Tuileries. He is offering his services as our own private tour guide when we explain we have not yet even seen La Tour Eiffel, l’Arc de Triomphe. He is aghast. Offers to show us both at the same time. A little known spot not too far from our present location very few know about. Only the cognoscenti are aware of this secret spot. He scurries out, confident he has piqued our interest and will follow. He has and we do.

And there they are. Both the Eiffel Tower and the Arch of Triumph. On opposite sides of the Seine. Captured in one photo on one magical Tuesday afternoon.

Please visit Photos By Emilio for more of my work, mostly in color.

And my apologies to anyone duped by such an outlandish tale as this photo was taken just outside the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas NV just last week.

But I had fun writing it! 🙂

Los Angeles Tracks

Black And White Photography, Patti, Photography

Down by the scrubby sands of the Los Angeles River, exploring life in the urban raw of the LA railway tracks where the hopes of freight train riders seem to ride forever through the past, present and future.