A day without color…
August 4, 2005, 8:44 PM
My, my, my… I realized I’m starting to turn into a Wikipediholic when I sit down at the computer and immediately pull up Wikipedia. From there, I immediately pull up my watch list, and see what’s changed. And then I start reading and editing. Then of course, I was on my discussion forum, and wanted to format a link to a Web page like [[wikipedia article|this]]. Those who are familiar know that [[that]] is how you form a link to another Wikipedia article, with the former using custom link text, and the latter without.
You might want to blame Wikipedia for the fact that my Malcolm X Park photo set is not yet out. I’ve been playing around on Wikipedia, my “intellectual playground”, as I like to call it. It’s fun, but it’s also quite addictive.
So there you are. I’m certainly dedicated, but it’s starting to use time I usually spend on this site. I will get Malcolm X Park and Shades of Gray (both of which have been sorted down some in preparation for the respective sets) up before too long. As long as I can pry Wikipedia from my grasp, it seems.I went to DC on Wednesday with the intention of shooting entirely in black-and-white. And except for seven photos (out of 262 total), I kept my end of the bargain. I also shot two black-and-white movies, both of which were of the Metro, and most likely won’t get used. The photos, on the other hand, will be used for a Photography set, with the working title of “Shades of Gray”. Why did I shoot in black-and-white this time? I wanted to try something new. In the fifty trips to the Washington DC area that I’d made between July 7, 2001 and July 20, 2005, you know how many black-and-white photos I shot? Zero. Everything was shot in color. So for my August 3, 2005 trip, I went and did black-and-white, which made things more exciting for me. I can fire off a color photo with little effort, because I’m used to it. With black-and-white, it’s made me think again. I’ve got to set up my shots differently. I’ve got to pay more attention to contrast rather than color. In color, a red object on a green background might be quite interesting looking. In black-and-white, it all kind of runs together, because it’s all gray. All in all, it’s a different way of thinking, and it was fun. I might just have to do this again one day.
Continue reading…Categories: DC trips, Photography
This Wednesday, I’m going black-and-white…
August 1, 2005, 10:24 PM
I’m going to Washington DC on Wednesday, August 3, and I’m turning the camera over to black-and-white mode in the morning, and leaving it there all day. So instead of railfanning, which is what last summer was all about, I’m going to spend my day on the town for a bit, shooting black-and-white photos. In the evening, when I usually play with some long-exposure stuff, I’m also shooting in grays. No color! Why no color? It’s something worth a try. Something to keep things interesting for me, if nothing else. And who knows… it might end up as a photo set if it turns out well enough.
Of course, turning the fun into a photo set requires some planning on my part, and so we’ll see what kind of things I can come up with. I know that the Infoshop is on my list of places to go, so you may see some black-and-white pictures of DC’s Shaw neighborhood come up, among other things. It ought to be fun.
Categories: Photography