Numbers are intellectual witnesses that belong only to mankind
Honoré de Balzac
Humans are unique among living things, it seems, in counting things. While many animals can distinguish between ‘more’ and ‘less’, or recognise small or large quantities instinctively, only humans have developed the ability to count accurately using numbers. This seemingly simple skill has transformed our understanding of the world. It has allowed us to measure time, calculate distances, record trade, build civilisations, and interpret the laws of nature. And yet:
Many of the things you can count, don’t count. Many of the things you can’t count, really count.
Albert Einstein
It’s often said that odd numbers of objects make for more interesting compositions in photography: three, five, maybe seven. And I’m sure we’ve had photo challenges linked to this concept, especially threes. But today I’m talking about photographing numbers themselves. Photographing not three objects, but the number three. Not five objects but the number five.
Numbers everywhere!
So that’s my chosen theme for this week’s Monochrome Madness. And when you start to look you will see numbers everywhere, because yes, we humans love to count things. Numbers help us to create order, literally, and we love order and patterns. Look for house numbers, price tags, dates, street signs …
Your photos can have other things in them but each must include a number. I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Pingbacks don’t usually work on my site so if you’d like to join in please leave a comment below with a link to your post so I can check it out. And to find out more about Monochrome Madness have a look at the information on Leanne’s blog.
As always I’ve used Nik Silver Efex Pro to convert what were originally colour images to black and white. My feature photo is of a beach hut in Whitstable as are several of the others below. In fact, that was where I first got the idea for this challenge!
Click on any photo to open a slide show with captions, to see where they were taken
2 Comments
Anne Sandler
Great collection of monochrome numbers! And what can be sexy about tomatoes???
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you very much Anne 😊 I guess you’d have to ask the market traders at Pike Place about those tomatoes, but they were certainly big and juicy-looking!