By Oklahoma Photo Exploration
Black and white: the mundane tell of photographic expression that is deeper than the first glance or impression. Yet, conceptually leaves one wondering what was the photos intent, thereby leaving us to make up stories to place with the photo which may or may not be the original intent which was displayed by the author.
It is as the difference between good and bad, light and darkness, shadows cast by the light as it falls up on different objects in the photo. Light over comes the darkness therefore we see the lines created by the rafters in this photo and bleeds down to the darkness which leaves little to be seen. The contrast between the objects is eye catching and the lightest portion draws your eyes towards this spot in the photo. Yet were left with what is there to be seen.
Imagine this this wall is a separation between us and the next room and we have not yet explored this, so we are left in wonder what lies on the other side, we can see the roof has fallen through in this area so most of the material will lie on the floor in that room. We can see in the photo that a section in the middle of the wall have been cracked and makes a V downward. This is likely caused by one of the larger beams coming down and striking the wall at that point and falling into the other room. The room will be well illuminated because it is receiving most of the light directly overhead. Because of the wall construction through this location we can safely say it is quite similar to what we see on this side of the wall. We can guess there may be a window on the far side as it is an exterior wall. It too would be non unlike the ones we see on this side.
Painting the picture for you, sometimes the photo relay a great deal of information it is left there for us to interpret what that is; going off ones first impression may not yield great results. Of course with this photo I was there and made the photo because of the old beams and the construction of the walls gave a impression of structural development of that day. Being intrigued by architectural engineering design and development and history I found it very amazing. A living testament how wooden roofs with stood the test of time and still hold up more than a century has gone by. Yet in my thoughts I know that the houses we live in today would likely fall apart if left uninhabited for as long as this train depot had.
I capture in the photo a feeling, and a mood and bring out as much as I want to be seen in my minds eye; then I snap the shot to create as closely as I can what I am feeling. I have adjusted the f-stop and the speed to give detail but also capture the back-lighting to give a silhouette of the rafters. Lines and shapes give a photograph more strength and captures your attention faster than a photo without.
Could I have done this in color rather than black and white, amazingly not as good, for what I capture in color may have been shades of gray, some brown and blue chromatic aberration. Sometimes black and white captures a mood far better than color photographs. In particularly you may choose to use black n white photos on days were the cloud cover washes out crisp color and causes pictures to be bland and not interesting.
So the next time you go out to take a photo, think about what it might look like in black and white, and does your photo tell a story. Can you convey your shot they way you have it pictured in you mind it should look like. Take time to get down low or up high, move around and look at objects from different angles then settle for the best. Your photos will show the attention taken to create it. Don't plagiarizer other peoples work, you may use other peoples work to give you inspiration about a location but find your own shot. So many times someone goes out and gets a great shot and many want to follow suit and get the same type of shot, it is okay to gain the inspiration but when you get there do it differently. Who knows you may end up having even a better interpretation of a great photo.
In the end, I leave you with this; keep taking photos and more photos. A person can not expect to become a piano player over-night, so why do people think they can become a great photographer within a day or two. It takes time and practice and knowing your camera as well as the use of light.
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