photography – From Pyrenees to Pennines

Bright As Can Be

I set this week’s challenge for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. I must be mad (as required for Monochrome Madness …). What I’m asking for are photos of subjects you’d normally choose to shoot in colour exactly because of their vibrant colours. Can you make them as arresting in black and white?

My header photo was taken only about ten days ago in the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. This exhibit was bemusing and distorting us with confusing mirrors and colours. I was suffused in rich blues. As you can’t see here. But does it matter? I was surprised to discover that it didn’t, much.

A couple of months ago, I met Sarah of Travel with Me fame in London, and we amused ourselves with our cameras near the Gasholder development. Some pavement art caught our eye, and our own black shadows contrasted with the rich rainbow tones of the illustrated bottles. As you can’t see here. But it seems to work anyway.

Summer near the sea in England can mean to me clumps of sunshine-yellow gorsebushes on the cliffs near Staithes. Blue sea below, blue(ish) sky above (it IS England after all). So does this work in black and white? Not for me. Another shot might have done, but not this one.

Then there’s the brightly lit-in-multi-colours tunnel near Granary Wharf in Leeds. It’s striking enough in simple black and white, but … in the original,the coloured lights lend a greater vibrancy to the shot.

Let’s go back to Sweden, where we started. When I show my (colour) photos from one of the ferry boats we spent so much time on, ‘Wow! The sea. The sky. They’re so blue!’ is the immediate comment. So what if they’re not …

So what can you come up with? I think three of these images stand up quite well to being in monochrome, one doesn’t, and one just about holds its own. But you can look at the originals below, and make your own mind up. And then please join in! Link your post back to mine, and to Leanne at Monochrome Madness here..

And by the way, you don’t have to include any colour photos you might have used as your starting point. That was an optional extra I imposed on myself.

Black and White and Minimalist

This week, PR is our host for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, and has chosen Minimalism. Look at PR’s post on the subject to see some fine examples. I didn’t find this too easy. But I had a go.

Fog can be our friend here …

… as can dusk …

… and a flying machine to keep the lampost company. Otherwise it’s all about the natural world.

Here are a few plants that might work.

I found some peacock feathers …

… a bird or two …

… cherry blossom …

…and a solitary tree at Brimham Rocks, spotted last week.

I’ve a feeling these are only a little bit minimalist. Why don’t you have a go, and do much better? Link your post to PR and to Leanne’s post, at the links above and we’ll all come and have a look.

Any-Colour Monochrome: Black & White Need Not Apply

My turn to host Leanne’s Monochrome Madness this week. I thought it would be fun to explore those shots which, by accident, design, or clever editing, are monochrome in any colour but black and white. Let’s go…

Winter scenes can often offer opportunities. The camera often seems to re-register those – to our eyes -crisp white snowy scenes to muted greens and blues.

Some years ago, this church in Bamberg took my eye, its doorway saints ravaged by the weather, and presenting to the world as olde-worlde sepia.

Sepia again. It was a sepia-ish sort of day when I spotted this young herring gull in Newcastle.

And this cherry blossom? I had an afternoon of blameless fun playing with the special effects on my camera.

One day – quite a few years ago now – my grandson and I enjoyed ourselves at the Horniman Museum, where a tent was in place bathing us in a range of different colours. Here William is in blue – and inevitably- red, because who knew that eventually, the shot would find its way into Becky’s Squares challenge #SimplyRed?

We’ll finish off in the natural world again.

I think this final shot just about squeezes under the wire as monochrome. What can you show us?

Wonky Reflections

This week for the Lens-Artists Challenge, Anne invites us to focus on Reflections. She, and now many others, have shown us photos of astonishing beauty featuring the natural world. I thought I’d go down a different road, and look at distorted reflections.

I love the scene shown in the featured photo. It comes from Strasbourg, and features a mirror reflecting buildings from an unlovely part of town, then the home of lots of car parks and redevelopment.

This next one isn’t distorted exactly. But it is hard to read. It’s a pond landscape which to me looks like an expressive painting of … who knows?

I’m beside water for my next one too. The Leeds-Liverpool Canal. What’s different about this one is that it’s the water that reflects on the concrete above, rather than the other way about.

What next? A bit of a Rubik’s cube of images. I feel if you pushed these individual reflections-in-windows about, you might come up with complete pictures of the buildings reflected here.

And here we are in Zaragoza. Are we looking at the relics in the Roman Museum behind the glass, or the street outside’s buildings and trees?

And here’s a couple of images from London’s Gasholder estate.

And finally, an image from home that I’ve shown before, and will surely show again: I love it. Sunrise on Christmas Eve a few years ago.

Storm Warning?

In my opinion, storms are best appreciated from behind closed curtains, when I’m curled up with a good book. If a roaring fire can be arranged, so much the better.

Nevertheless, there’s something thrilling and energising about the power and drama of a storm, whether it’s by being hurled sideways by a potent and tyrannical wind; half-drowned by an unrelenting downpour; or by experiencing ocean waves careening coastwards. Unless you’re on board a ship, as I once was, enduring a six hour crossing that should have taken an hour and a half. That was NOT thrilling at all.

But because of my preference outlined above, I can only offer pictures of the precursors to, or aftermaths of storms. Oh, and a few rainstorms.

Just a few rainy images in monochrome: two are naturally (almost) monochrome – that’s rain for you. The other one is processed from colour.

And here’s more aftermath: flooded fields near York, spotted from a train window: and trees at Studley Royal, broken by Storm Otto in 2023.

And, just as my header photo celebrates a storm about to arrive, my final photo shows its aftermath, and the promise of finer weather ahead.

‘Stormy’ is Beth of Wandering Dawgs’ first challenge as a member of the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge team. Welcome Beth!

Accidental Monochrome

For Monochrome Madness this week, Elke, of Pictures Imperfect, asks us for images which are naturally monochrome. Or in my case, accidentally monochrome. So it’s all about winter then ….

Not necessarily. Statuary answers very well. Here are two chaps seen at English Heritage’s archaeology store in Helmsley, North Yorkshire: and another at Rievaulx Abbey, all in North Yorkshire.

Or these, from door frames at the Modernista Casa Coll i Regàs in Mataró, Catalonia.

And birds against a reliably grey English sky:

Finally, an all too typical scene from a corner of an English farmyard. I make no apology for not removing the splashes of colour in this, or in my header shot.

Breaking the Rules

This week, for the Lens-Artists Challenge, Ritva urges us to show what happens when we break the established rules – well – guidelines really, in photography. So I went out for a walk that very evening intent on doing so: and took this shot directly into the sun.

I quite like it. But then rules are made to be broken.

But they’re there for purpose. ‘Don’t take shots through a window’, they say. Well, you can see why in the next two shots. But I like them both: one for its evocation of a typical English keep-your-coat-on sort of day at the seaside: the other for showing that on some days, staying behind a protective wall of glass really is the only option.

And when it comes to wildlife… well, wildlife hasn’t heard the rules, and doesn’t either stand still, hover or otherwise mark time: Especially Arctic tern with eggs and offspring to guard. So you take what you can get.

‘Don’t take photos through glass AND from a moving train.’ Well, why not? Newcastle at night …

Finally, I recently took this photo in – or around – Masham Church. I haven’t a clue where exactly I was or what was going on, so I must have broken every rule in the book.

But I don’t care.

Mirror

Today, it’s my turn to offer a theme for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. And I’ve chosen Mirror.

‘Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?’ So asks the evil queen in the classic 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

I haven’t used my mirror to find the answer to this question, largely because I haven’t got a magic one. But I have found some mirrors in a junk shop in Harrogate, reflecting both some of the goods on offer, and the Victorian street where you’ll find it. In fact the shop window itself serves as an extra mirror.

And here’s another street mirror, helping the motorist out into a busy road. And a car’s passenger-side mirror in Lancashire one winter’s morning.

Let’s default to shop windows as mirrors.

And the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead makes a ceiling into a mirror, while outside the VA in London is one in marble……

Water is an old favourite for a reflective surface. Let’s go to Studley Royal, Seville, a humble puddle in Masham, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Gargrave.

…. and finally, an impromptu wintry lake mirror near home.

Oh, and finally finally, a bit of fun. Two little lambs spotted last week. Using a pre-digital film analogy, one’s a negative of the other. Not quite mirror images, but please don’t quibble when they’re so sweet.

A Box Office Blockbuster?

For this week’s Lens Artists Challenge, Sofia asks us to consider Cinematic.

Well, I think it’s not too late for me to be the brains behind a world-beating film. Never done any film-making in my life. I don’t have a screenplay, or even an idea for one. I don’t have a backer. Well, does it really matter? One of you will put up the money, I’m sure.

I fancy making a desert my location. The Sahara? The Gobi? The Atacama? Well, I can’t afford to go to any of those. Won’t an expanse of English sand do the job?

Hmm. Not really. Any fool can see that’s an English beach. Think again.

I could just about afford the so-called badlands of Navarre in Spain, the Bárdenas Reales. Though the camera crew would have to take care to dodge the speed restriction signs, like the one you can see at the bottom of this shot.

Yeah, that might do. Local colour though. I need a few cacti …

There. That’ll do.

A story though. No idea. I saw this fellow in Tate Britain a few years ago. Maybe someone could think of a yarn to tell about him?

Or maybe a historical drama is the way to go?

I saw these soldiers in the Museu Frederic Marès in Barcelona. They’d look good intrepidly ploughing their way through a sandstorm?

Have I given you enough to work with? Oh, hang on. You need the ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ shot for the final frame. Here you go …

If you’re as excited by the idea of this project as I am, just send your ideas (and promises of financial backing) in the comments section. Golden Globes and Oscars await!

PS. What Sofia REALLY wanted us to do was to consider those locations, scenes and types of shot that establish a mood, convey emotion and move the story along in a good film. I think I pretty much dodged the brief…

Photographing the Photographers

Let’s have a bit of fun this week. Let’s spy on the photographers we spot, and take snaps of them as they do what photographers have to do. The featured photo was taken last summer near Bamburgh. These people with their cameras and all the tackle were actually twitchers, in pursuit of some bird that had fetched up there – I can’t remember what.

Here’s another image from there, and then another, also from Northumberland: the Baltic in Gateshead, where one eager visitor was taking shots of the bridges on the Tyne.

Or there’s that photographer’s paradise, Whitby Goth Weekend.

Or sometimes a TV photographer turns up. Much more impressive.

Or even what passes for film crew, spotted in Brick Lane.

But we’ll end where we began, with shots of photographers being snapped. A friend and I enjoyed playing around with this once-upon-a-time camera shop in Newcastle, and if you look very hard, you’ll see me in the second image, looking for that perfect shot.

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.