I’ve been invited to participate in my first ever blog challenge! (Pause for a moment of cheering!) The challenge is to create five consecutive posts of black and white photography that you have taken recently. I was invited by my friend Woodland Gnome of Forest Garden who is on day 2 of the challenge. Her lovely blog chronicles the joys of living in a woodland garden and her posts are filled with birds, flowers, trees, and all manner of wonderful things. I love her blog and eagerly wait for her posts. She’s taught me a lot about photography and gardening. She was in turn invited by Eliza Waters who posted some amazing photos of ice crystals today. I’m new to her blog and excited to explore it and get to know her as well.
After reading the posts of several who are participating in the challenge, I noted that most of us are unaccustomed to black and white photography. I naively thought it would be the same as regular photos – just point and shoot an interesting scene and edit it to B&W. It’s not quite so simple. Different rules apply when you remove color – when I looked at some of my photos in B&W they were just a jumble of unidentified objects. It made me realize how much we rely on color to identify and navigate our world. So I decided to change tactics and use the absence of color to draw the eye to other attributes of the natural world that are beautiful, but under-appreciated. When I went back outside, I focused on various textures in the plants and landscape. This tactic worked very well, especially as I found many of my subjects were drab and devoid of color at the ragged end of winter. They wouldn’t be very interesting in color photography, but they shine in black and white. So I hope that you will enjoy spending the next five days with me seeing the world through different eyes.
Today’s subjects are the withered hydrangea blossoms that have clung on in spite of the long hard winter. Their glorious summer days spent, these tattered flowers dance with the wind and I have been enchanted by their ghostly form all winter.
In black and white photography their papery forms are a poetry all their own.
Thank you for joining with me today and I hope you will visit the blogs referenced above to see their perspective on the challenge.
Blessings to you,
Sarah
anordinarymiracleday 
These are absolutely exquisite! You have absolutely nailed it, Sarah! Different rules do apply when one removes the color- and you have explained and demonstrated it so well! I love these 😉 Thank you for joining the challenge, Sarah 😉 Giant hugs, WG
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Marvelous shots, Sarah! The hydrangea fairly glows in B/W. It is exciting to see you embrace this challenge. We’re all in the pool, learning and growing together. 🙂 Thanks for the link!
Thanks Eliza! I’ve enjoyed seeing your photos as well – you’ve got an amazing eye! This has been a great challenge for trying different methods of photography and meeting fellow enthusiasts. I’m looking forward to following your blog. 🙂 Blessings, Sarah
My camera helps me to see the world through different eyes, it picks out the beauty and happiness needed to make me smile.
I like the way you’ve approached the challenge, I didn’t enjoy mine very much but instead of taking the colour out of happy memories, maybe I should have tried making new memories instead.
Hi Sallyann, Thank you for your response. Photography is a great way to get a different perspective and to solidify our memories. I wasn’t for sure how I’d like the challenge either, but it was good experience. I had fun just spending some time taking pictures and experimenting with editing them for black and white or in other ways I typically don’t use. I hope you continue to find much joy in your photography. Blessings, Sarah
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