Black and White

I am so sleepy this afternoon! I refuse, however, to take a nap until I have made this new blog post. :)

Let's start with this,

This was given to me a dear friend this summer at camp, and says, "When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes, when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls." (-Ted Grant) While I love my color photos there is something to be said about the stark black and white of photos without color. You remove any potential for distraction, and you you have emotion, you have composition, you have grace. 

I challenged myself the other day to take only black and white photographs, and what happened was a lot of fun. I captured kids at work, did a small self portrait of myself embellishing the frame that I put that quote it, and got a very cute picture of a five year old. You know, it's fun sometimes, to not worry so much about the color, and just snap a picture. These are prints and observations that can be used and seen for the rest of our lives. The evidence that we leave for our children, their children, and their children's children!

Think about it. The last time you saw a photograph of your grandmother, or grandfather, or even your parents. You look at that photo and think to yourself, "That was a whole different world" even if was only twenty years ago! Shoot, I see pictures of myself as a baby, and think "Was I really that little once!?" 

Photographs are just pictorial evidence that what happened, happened. And black and white can be some of the most daunting and amazing of them all. In fact, just today I was looking at another photography blog, and used that very word, daunting! (Check her out, Tianna is amazing, and I can get one more person to support her, by golly, I'd do it!) These pictures of simple white and black give us an opportunity to create images that we may never get to see so simply, ever again. 

And you know, I enjoy that. :)

Self Portrait