Second verse, same as the first...

Another lazy, beautiful day as the holidays come to an end:

It was the kind of day for walking without purpose, to take opportunities to sit down, enjoy the brisk air and the sun on one's face. I took a route through the neighbourhood, stopping at a hill top park and down at a secluded beach. The frost was still evident wherever there was shadow, the rough edges of melt a record of the sun's passing. The water was still, reflecting the intense colour of the sky.

The Allure of Black and White

Gonzales Observatory

Songhees Bench

  

 Songhees Fence

  Windows

  

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Black and white images are wonderful for emphasizing line, shape and tones, revealing the underlying geometry and artistry of the world around us. I started the day with a short trip to the top of a local point, high above the ocean. There's a weather observatory there; making this study of the stairs in some ways trained my eye to look for black and white images on a later walk along the inner harbour. I like making images of shadows because of their indirect reference to objects around us: we don't see the object directly, but we can easily visualize it without the distortions incorporated into the shadow. The final image is the exact opposite: indirect evidence of windows from the pool of light they reflected into a deep shadow. I particularly like the ambiguity of that final image: it can certainly be read literally, but is also open to more imaginative interpretations, while the other three images are too specifically defined to have that option.