Elegance and timelessness are what spring to mind about black and white photographs. They have a depth of view that colour photographs often don’t convey. Converting colour photographs from colour to black and white digitally can often bring a crispness and brightness to an otherwise dull photograph. So why given all the pluses of black and white photography do I show so few of mine in Black and White?
Mostly it’s because I like my photographs to be a true representation of what I see. That means in all the technicolour glory. But mainly because when I try to make the conversion they simply don’t look that good. This is because I mostly don’t give lots of thought to how I take my photographs but rather just click away experimenting as I go. For once this week I thought I’d think a little more in advance and look for photographic opportunities where I could capture the essence of winter in the kitchen garden.
At the time I didn’t convert the photographs to black and white but when it came to publishing them on the blog I threw caution to the wind.
The really heavy frost was only with us for one day but it was a remarkable day when the winter vegetables really did go wintry. Like this Bok Choi.
But let’s start at the gate which was frozen shut. It was quite remarkable to see the frozen moisture on the wood. Also, how the edges of the parsley and asparagus were edged with frost.
Although they looked a bit forlorn the leeks will have benefited a bit from some chill. Looking more at this picture makes me realise I’m going to have rather a lot of leeks to eat!
The vestiges of rhubarb, cauliflower, cabbage and beetroot certainly didn’t enjoy the chilling experience. I’m hopeful that they will still be ok to harvest as I have plans for them next week!
Away from the kitchen garden the frost was certainly making it’s mark amongst all the puddles of water lying around. With all the recent rain we’re waterlogged in many places. I quite like the artistic feel of this frozen puddle.
Having had a bit of a photography blight in recent weeks I’m feeling more cheerful to have been able to get out and get a bit more practice in. I’ve enjoyed the black and white experiment too so perhaps I’ll do a bit more of that in future. That would of course require me to be more diligent in my photography which is probably a good reason in itself.