This week at Lens-Artists, Anne from Slow Shutter Speed asks us to think about monochrome and black and white photography. Click on the link below to see her post.
My first photo here was edited from a colour image, although however it comes, it’s an odd composition. It was taken at Mitchells Fold, the Bronze Age stone circle on the border with Wales, and I was only aware of the passing figure as I snapped the shot. I neither saw him arrive, nor leave the scene. Gives one a bit of a shiver.
These next two shots were taken with my Lumix point and shoot (before it gave up the ghost), using the ‘dynamic monochrome setting’. It was midday, and in high summer, but the light was penumbral; as if the sun had been switched off. Again very strange, although you can well see why these hills inspired tales of the Devil and gatherings of evil ones whenever mist shrouded the heights.
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This last photo was again taken on the Stiperstones, but on a brilliantly sunny day – a view of the Devil’s Chair (edited from colour). It looks like a ruined citadel, the quartzite rocks catching the sunlight.
Related post: To Shropshire’s Mysterious Stiperstones
Lens-Artists: Black & White or Monochrome Please visit Anne at Slow Shutter Speed. She’s given us a snappy little essay on this topic.
Tish, Good to see you are settled enough to return to your photographic.
I wish you the best life where you are now.
But also I hope that your long-lived Wenlock returns in your mind/heart to a place befitting its role as your home for 16 years! Aided, of course, by the Wenlock photographs some of which you have long shared with us.
Lovely to hear from you, Sarah. And of course you are quite right about keeping a mindful space for the Wenlock years.
All the best to you too, and thank you for your kind thoughts.
Great edits, Tish – I can see why this place seems…haunted? Love the ghost images too, but all of them are interesting in monochrome.
Many thanks, A-C.
Well I must admit siperstones is a new one on me Tish (and apparently on my computer which wants it to be superstores – how sad is that?! I find myself wondering how much of the eerie haunted look is due to your excellent edits and how much different they might look in color. Either way, they do indeed look very spooky!
What a hoot, Tina – superstores indeed! Reminds me of a university librarian chum whose missives addressed to postgrads got changed by his computer to postcards.
I daresay my photos upped the eeriness a bit, but the Stiperstones are deeply strange. Those outcrops along the summit seem vaguely luminous in low light, and it’s anyway a very bleak and lonely place. Lots of old lead mine workings (going back to Roman times) in the vicinity. And prehistoric burial cairns. And I forgot to mention the ghost of Wild Edric who rides there, the Saxon lord who went to war with the Normans (Shropshire’s version of Robin Hood).
Fascinating photos! The first one is especially wonderful.
Thank you, Janet.
Great atmospheric photos. I have a Lumix too. That dynamic monochrome setting can be a bit too much of a good thing sometimes, can’t it? I rarely use it, but you have to good effect here.
I do miss my Lumix, but I know what you mean about dynamic mode.
Lots of great texture in these pictures. I’ve always thought B&W is all about contrast, composition and texture. When you leave out color, you see the pictures differently.
That’s really what interests me, the leaving out of colour and seeing the textures, underlying structures.
My favorite black & white pictures were usually cityscapes, but every now and then, I get a real landscape to work in monochrome. One does need more structure in black & white. Angles. Shadows. Texture. I often can’t think in all those dimensions at the same time. When I see in color, I think in color.
Great atmospheric shots Tish. Mitchell’s Fold is definitely other worldly.
I’m looking forward to another visit there, now we’re nearer and might manage not to get ourselves lost on the way there.
Two ghosts in one post? Well done.
It’s a big thing the spirit world. We both learned a bit about that in Africa 🙂
We did. Plenty of spirits there.
Great photos. Love the standing stones. Is that a yeti in the background? 😉
Now I hadn’t thought of a yeti, John. He’s certainly got a big stride 🙂
I love that first one, Tish. I think lots of your photos would translate well into monochrome.
Many thanks, Janet. I’m really very fond of monochrome.
Great response Tish! I love your edits. So much of a great B&W is in the editing. Relating to your mysterious visitor, I’ve also had that happen. I’ll take a picture and then see something in it when I get it into the computer. I think that happens when we’re concentrating so much on composition and lighting, we don’t see it.
Many thanks for that very nice comment, Anne. And I agree about things materializing in photos after the event. It is one of the drawbacks of photography. One can sometimes forget to look at the bigger picture 🙂
This a lovely spiritual post and we love your monochrome take on it, Tish.
Many thanks, Dina.
That is one special place which your photos capture all its amazing feel both with composition and later with your editing. Your post made me want to visit it.
Many thanks, Sofia. So happy these photos made you want to visit.
Love your interpretation. The photos tell the stories you speak of. A bit of a shiver for me too with the unknown person in the first photo.
Many thanks, Donna.
I have very fond memories of the Stiperstones and especially the Devil’s Chair. We often used to stay at The Bog Visitor Centre on primary school trips and spend our days collecting pond life specimens and samples of rocks with sparkling quartz. After dark, the teachers would often read stories – spooky stories that sometimes featured the Devil’s Chair which now loomed above us (at least in my imagination). Then next day we would hike up there and clamber around trying to figure out more exactly how the Devil fitted himself between the rocks. So it has always remained a very special place. The kind of place that, in the spirit of Holden Caulfield, you don’t really want to go back to (although I have done once – and it was lovely) because it might ruin your memories.
Funny how you also encountered a ghostly presence there. Your brief account actually gave me a bit of a shiver… a nice bit of storytelling, Tish!
Thanks for joining me on this familiar ‘haunt’, James.
The Bog Visitor Centre is still a good spot for starting an exploration (and for scones and cake). Not much changed in the area since your school days either, though the NT have made a discreetly sited, user-friendly path along easterly base of the Stiperstones.
They’ve also been managing to vegetation to improve whinberry production – a great late summer crop. We bought a punnet last week from our local farm wholefood shop at Lydham. The pleasure of finding them there was/is greater than the sum of their parts.
Gosh it’s a long long time since I read Catcher in the Rye.
“Haunt.” Such a magical word! Out of curiosity I just looked up the etymology and turns out it’s distantly related to “home”. So reminiscent in ways to “nostalgia”; our indistinct longing for home. Well, on a related topic (if a clunky segui), hope you’re beginning to feel at home in Bishops Castle 🙂
Thanks for those good wishes, James, and the etymology of ‘haunt’, with related thoughts of nostalgia/’indistinct longing for home. A feeling for home, then, but with a certain edge; bitter-sweet maybe.
You’ve reminded me that I grew very confused about where home was after our 8 years in Africa. I’m not sure I’ve quite resolved that one, though listening recently to various Buddhist/yogic pundits, I’m coming to see, if not to feel, that the idea of coming home to oneself is as good as it gets. i.e. if more of us were at home to ourselves we might improve our powers of discretion and perception as in not being so suggestible.
Amen, Tish!
Whoops… the process got confused somewhere. Sorry about that. Obviously only meant to leave one reply so please delete the other ones (you choose!)
Your strange visitor picture would be a great one as a story starter. He is a bit of a scary creature striding through your mysterious rocks. I am drawn to the second and last pictures. I love the crisp contrasts and the sharp details in the foreground of the second picture.
Thank you for that very thoughtful comment, Marsha. So pleased these photos struck a chord. And yes, now you’ve said it, that mysterious striding figure is itching to be in a story. I must have a litte ponder 🙂
I think you should write it for Story Chat, Tish! It really has loads of possibilities!