Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Defiant, icy bush

Quick note: I'm back. Sort of. Thank you all for your generous holiday wishes. When I have the time and the bandwidth, I'll respond in kind. For now, please know that my wife and I are having an amazing, fulfilling, recharging time with our brood, and that we'll all be back to a normal blogging pace before long. I even have it on good authority that some of my wife's pictures will make it into the mix here. If you think I have a unique view of the world, you should see how she sees it!

On with today's show.

Black and white photography jazzes me. My first exposure (sorry) to photography of any kind was b&w. I remember trying to imagine the first few pictures I took in their color-stripped form. I was wandering around the grounds of my summer camp, shooting trees and other nature scenes. I tried to compensate for the lack of color by making the composition interesting; angles, shadows, whatever I could use to make up for the fact that the lush green field in front of me would become just a drab variation of gray once I developed the results in the darkroom.

This one is from in front of my house. We had had an ice storm the night before that killed a tree and downed branches throughout the city. But this little bush seemed to be the only thing within miles that wasn't leaning toward the ground. It was almost defiant in the way it stood up against the onslaught of ice. So out came the camera.

To continue my recently-established tradition, I've got a few questions for you to ponder as you observe this:
  1. What's the first thing you want to do when you hear a huge snow/ice storm is moving in? (Substitute rain or other liquid form if you don't ever get snow.)
  2. Despite the overwhelming preponderance of gray, is there a bright side to storms like this? What is it?
  3. What kinds of pictures would you take in this kind of scenario?
BTW, I'm going to hold off on providing an answer to the bands-of-color picture I posted last week. I'm loving your responses - none of which is near the mark, but all of which are amazingly creative and fun to read. Please keep trying. I'll keep cranking out the pictures and stories. Promise.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

LazyVedaSays:
(http,vaza,blogspot,com)

1-Check levels of necessities, chase out if needed, then settle in across from a big window and just watch. Oh, the lights and tv have to be shut off. Maybe a smidge of music on low, but only if it's not any kind of electrical storm, so winter storms are the best for this.


2-This one? YES!!! The white of the snow! How it hangs on branches, how it's smooth before anyone/-thing has trampled in it, how it's not grey and black and slushy from cars yet, how it's just pure, just white, just...beautiful. Nature's art before the demolition.


3-I'm a documentor. I'd go for the downed stuff. I'd like to say different, but I've a history... :) I think I would've found this as well, just for the way the ice is on the branches. Like hard candy around pretzels... And I'd likely take pictures of some old houses that look so fairytale in a blanket of snow.

Thanks for poppin' in! It's good to hear that everything's going so well for you and yours! It's hard to keep that level of closeness when the world's so busy, taking us all along with it. Be well, Carmi!

Janet said...

winter is always so pretty when you're using the sense of sight and not touch.

Jill said...

I am thoroughly miffed that the color bands are not twistie-ties. I have zoomed them bigger, smaller, at an angle, upside down. The agony is killing me in a delightful way!

I love to sleep with the windows slightly open during a rainstorm (no snow in the Bay Area). It's peaceful to hear the water drip onto the leaves or the roof. One of the bright sides of a storm is how warm and cozy I feel inside. I also like seeing the world in black and white - I particularly like B&W photography. One can see a different depth of the image from the various shades of gray. And the air always feels and smells so clean and fresh.