23-DEC-2010
Layers of light and shadow, Recife, Brazil, 2010
This image of a cruise ship steaming its way out of Recife’s harbor uses black and white abstraction to stress the play of light and shadow on both the sea and in the sky. I built the image around six stacked layers of light and shadow – anchored by the reflection in the lower right hand corner. The silhouetted barrier reef that gives the town its name (Recife means reef) comes next, separating the harbor from the ocean itself. The dark expanse of the sea leads the eye to the distant ship, its stack lifting a plume of smoke into the clouds overhead. The sun again reflects on water just ahead of the ship, leading it into its journey. The brightest light in the photograph is the sun itself at the top of the image, echoing the reflections below. Using backlighting to make this image makes color redundant. The scene works best in its simplest form – a black and white abstraction.
21-JUL-2010
Robert Frost’s grave, Old First Church Graveyard, Bennington, Vermont, 2010
The poetry of Robert Frost is lean and spare. So is his gravestone, embossed only with a stylized wreath. Black and white is a lean medium in itself, a perfect compliment to Frost and his art. I also liked the dampness that regularly forms around the names of Frost and his wife, Eleanor, which suggests the moisture of tears. They were born within a year of each other, yet Frost outlived her by a quarter of a century. They rest together beneath this marker, the passing of each marked by a phrase from Frost’s poetry.
19-NOV-2009
Profile, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2009
I was having lunch in a restaurant with a tutorial student when I saw the way the window light was falling on the face of a man dining at a nearby table. As he turned his head into profile, the sun illuminated his white hair and beard from behind, making it seem as if he was lost in thought. I made this image to take advantage of the back lighting’s ability to abstract the subject by taking away all color except for the flesh tones in the forehead. When I converted this image to black and white, even those tones vanish, further simplifying the profile, and making it seem more symbolic of thought.
18-OCT-2009
Command, World War II memorial, Kiev, Ukraine, 2009
Monumental battle sculpture lines the sides of an underpass in the Kiev park dedicated to the memory of the Soviet Ukraine’s victory over the Nazis in World War II. The rough textures of the sculptors art here tell the story of command and devotion. Cast in black stone within a gray concrete underpass, the statues did not evoke the stress of battle when seen in color photographs. Black and white is the perfect medium for such an image. It echoes the photographs of the war itself, often seen in black and white prints and filmed footage.
17-OCT-2009
Sunrise, Independence Square, Kiev, Ukraine, 2009
A statue of one of Kiev’s legendary founders holding a goose in one hand and reaching for the sun with the other expresses the start of a new day in the city’s busy Independence Square. By taking the color out of the image and replacing it with black and white imagery, I make the scene less real and more symbolic, a good fit for a statue of a legend.
29-SEP-2009
Pyramid Falls, Alberta, Canada, 2009
I shot this lovely waterfall from through a window on a moving train.
The glass was tinted, the falls deep in shadow. We had only seconds to shoot – there was an announcement made that we were about to pass this waterfall, and the train slowed for “photography” but did not stop. I used burst shooting, and hoped for the best. All of my shots were greenish blue – a bilious color. Black and white saved the day here – the awful color vanished, and we are left only with the soft autumnal flow of water plunging from ledge to ledge.
20-SEP-2009
Sunday morning, Montreal, Canada, 2009
I knew that I wanted this image to be in black and white even as I shot it. He seemed to be biting his fingernails. He was hunched over, sitting alone on a bench not far from the St. Lawrence River. His blue sweater broke the mood – black and white saved it.
21-SEP-2009
Early light, Montreal, Canada, 2009
I used my spot-metering mode to expose for the early morning light on the pavement, throwing the surrounding hundred year old buildings along Old Montreal’s St. John the Baptist street into abstracting shadows. I built the image around a pedestrian – as she reached the end of the street, her head and shoulders were rimmed in glowing light. She is small, the scene large, creating a sense of scale incongruity. I use shadows here as an abstracting medium, and employ black and white to intensify them.
22-JUL-2009
The Liberator, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 2009
While prowling the streets of the touristy town of Newburyport, I stumbled upon a statue of William Lloyd Garrison, the prominent American abolitionist, journalist and social reformer. Daniel Chester French, who later created the famed statue in the Lincoln Memorial, sculpted this statue in 1983 to commemorate Garrison’s birth in Newburyport. Garrison, who edited the abolitionist newspaper, “The Liberator,” was known for his oratory, and French’s sculpture depicts him forcefully gesturing. I moved in on his gesturing hand, silhouetting it against the gathering storm clouds overhead. The ship weathervane atop Newburyport’s old Baptist Church (now a restaurant) in the background points at the menacing clouds. I converted this image to black and white because it further abstracts an already abstracted photograph.
21-JUL-2009
Decay, Castle Hill, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 2009
Over the last hundred years, this elegant figure has endured the battering winds, rains, and snows of the Massachusetts coast. It is one of many that line the Grand Allee of Castle Hill, the half-mile long “backyard” of an estate built by the Crane Plumbing fortune. The weathering of Castle Hill’s ornate statues provides a metaphor for the aging process itself. Yet unlike aging humans, this discolored, softened statue still retains its youthful appearance behind the fuzz of decay. That is the point of my image, a point reinforced by the abstracting power of black and white.
23-JUL-2009
Techno-gull, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 2009
Gloucester has long been home to those who go the sea in ships. Its harbor is crowded with fishing vessels, each of them sprouting masts, antennas, and other essential technology. I found this lone gull stationed upon a towering pole, and framed it incongruously within an abundance of ropes and cables. Black and white simplifies what would otherwise be an overly complex image, honing it down to its essence – a gull making itself home in a place where a free lunch is often expected.
25-JUL-2009
Burying Ground, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 2009
Black is the color of shadows, and of mourning. In this image, a study in contrast, black and white becomes a statement in itself, a comment on the mysteries of death, compared to the symbolic light of faith shining upon a gravestone topped with winged skull. Selective focusing, dappled shadows, and the telescoping effect of a long telephoto lens, complete the picture.