It’s a sombre thought that even the most modern and stable of structures may one day become a ruin. Did the builders of the Inca cities, of the Egyptian pyramids or of the temples of Angkor stop to consider that they may not stand for ever?
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It’s hard to say why a symmetrical image is so pleasing to the eye. It seems that our brains are naturally drawn to symmetry, finding it aesthetically pleasing and visually satisfying. Symmetry induces a sense of order, harmony, and perfection.
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Christiane Ritter spent a winter in the harshest conditions that Svalbard can offer. Living in a tiny hut with her husband and another trapper, but sometimes left alone there for many days. Constant darkness, cut off from the world by snow and ice; her Arctic was not my Arctic. But I think editing some of my photos in black and white has helped to emphasise what sense of bleakness I did find in this stunning environment.
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I don’t own a cat and never have; not because I don’t like them but because I like them too much to subject one to the trials of our frequent absences from home. So instead I enjoy meeting cats when out walking in my neighbourhood, or anywhere else come to that! And I don’t believe I can walk past a cat without stopping to say hello and take a photo.
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The Arctic is a magical place, wild, bleak, hauntingly beautiful. It is also, surprisingly perhaps, full of colour. However there are plenty of scenes that lend themselves to black and white photography too.
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Who hasn’t been mesmerised at times by the sight and sound of the sea? Watching the movement of waves, whether on the shore or from a ship, can be almost hypnotising, or so I find.
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One of the first things I was told when I first started to take photos as a ten year old was, always have the sun behind you when you shoot. Rubbish! That will of course result in a scene that is evenly lit and easy to capture. But it may also result in a scene that lacks interest.
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Although all black and white photos are monochrome photos, not all monochrome photos have to be black and white. Monochrome comes from the Greek monochromos meaning ‘having one colour’. But why shouldn’t that one colour be green, beige, or orange? Or for that matter, grey, red or blue?
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A childhood favourite is the alphabet book. For the English speakers amongst us, the last few letters of the alphabet always presented the biggest challenges for those creating these books. X was always ‘for Xylophone’, Y ‘for Yacht’ or occasionally ‘for Yak’, and Z usually ‘for Zebra’. But most letters offer a wide range of options, among them H.
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While I try to avoid too many picture postcard souvenir shots when I travel, it’s inevitable that I will take some. I feel the need to record what I see initially, before diving deeper into the sights, looking for details or angles that are less obvious.
