Focus on life: Week 8 - Monochromatic

Sally Russick of The Studio Sublime is hosting a year long challenge which is... sublime... as you'd expect with such a studio name. The challenge is named 'Focusing on Life' and every week Sally is sending a prompt on what should we focus the following week.

Her current prompt? An interesting one:

This week look deeper through the lens to the story your photo captures and then process it to one color! Or be daring and shoot in B&W (monochrome).

Like many others of my generation - I had the opportunity to watch black and white movies, and to see family albums with B&W or sepia photographs. Why... our own home pictures were B&W until not so long ago.

Many people think about monochromatic as colour-less. I find it fascinating - it allows one to focus on the message, on the composition, on the deep - and not to be distracted by colours, by the facade.

It also reminds me of the (not so long ago) time when our TV was B&W - and the sports commentator would describe the costumes in Skating Championships: I could see the vivid colours and it brought something special, like a bond between him and us.

These are taken on a snow-storm night / day a couple of years back (the storm that dropped 40 inches of snow in one pass :) ) and I didn't touch them at all - that's how I took them: the first three at night, during the storm; the last 2 - in the morning. Our neighbourhood was amazingly quiet that day.

But then I felt like cheating - while I love these pictures, they were not taken for this week's challenge. It is a challenge, and my word for the year is, after all, bloom... using old pictures while sometimes warranted, in this case didn't feel 'blooming' at all.

So I picked up my camera - and decided to be 'daring' and set it on B&W. Err.... how do I do that?! fumbled a bit with the camera, nothing popped up, went to my technical adviser (aka Dear Hubby) and... lo and behold, he fumbled with the same camera and - found nothing!

Now - I am one of those strange creatures: if you deny them something, they'll turn the Earth to make it happen (so if you really want me to do something tell me I cannot do it, I shouldn't do it, or I am not allowed to do it: I'll guarantee you it's going to be done in a blink!). That being said - I googled it... and read... and read... everybody said 'no, it can't be done on a digital camera'... but I truly love my camera and I don't think there is something it can't do. And at last - I found it - the setting is buried in there, but it is.

And these are my pictures of last night: Of course - the orchids :) Two of them: the deep pink and the white one - can you tell?

 Therese's beaded ornament (if you'd like to see it in colour, check this post).

My growing collection of vintage buttons (you can read more about it here)

I couldn't resist :) it was on my desk and it looked so beautiful - the kiwi:

There you have it: my take on the world in black and white.

P.S. When he was about 4 or so, William and I had this conversation:

• Mommy, when was colour invented? 
• Colour? What you mean by that? 
• You know, long ago the pictures were all black & white - is that how people saw the world? 
• Oh... no, the world was coloured, but we didn't know how to make the pictures colourful. It's like when you have only black & white crayons and you want to draw the world. -
• Oh, now I understand! [you could see the light downing on his face]

May you find the colour in your B&W moments!

Please visit the other artists - we are gathered, as usual, at Sally's place.