Walk Noir.....
The weather here in Juneau the last couple of days has been vast blue skies, fluffy white clouds and sunshine beaming yellow, but basically non-warming rays. In other words, boring.
Yesterday I remembered that I still had about 20 shots of Tmax-400, Black & White film waiting in my camera. I had purchased 2 rolls of it back in January when the world around me was buried in over a foot of snow. Making the scenery even more 'picturesque' during this time, was lack of winds. The snow was piling up in sculptural finery on branches of all kinds. Everything was in mumbling shades of grey, black and white. At times, January-grey sky sifted down with chunky white flakes. Other times it was a still palette of grey with no discernible beginning or end, leaving no depth of field to focus on while staring up. Color was of no consequence. This was a world of contrasts. The shades between black and white.
So yesterday, I remembered about the B&W film and decided to head out into the color-intensive world and take a walk down the hill from my house on the path next to a lake. I stuck my CD player in the outside pocket of my camera bag, positioned the earplugs and turned on Leonard Cohen as I set out on the paved pathway.
The film in my camera did not stop talking or pointing the whole time. It forced me to look at shapes. "Ignore the colors, dammit!" it screamed, as the dark blue lake bumped diamonds of light on its surface. When the lipstick red, twiggy branches tried to grab my attention with their bold, naked spring color, my film grabbed me by my shoulders in overly dramatic fashion and whispered in my ear,
"Silhouettes. Shadows. Look for the outline. Those colors mean nothing in our world, babe."
I was irritated at being called 'babe' but had to admit it was right. I ignored the greens, the reds, the yellows. I turned away from mallards. And snubbed the white mountain tops carving the crisp blue sky.
It was a black and white world for this dame, till the film ran out. My walk noir then ended as if it never happened at all. The end.
Yesterday I remembered that I still had about 20 shots of Tmax-400, Black & White film waiting in my camera. I had purchased 2 rolls of it back in January when the world around me was buried in over a foot of snow. Making the scenery even more 'picturesque' during this time, was lack of winds. The snow was piling up in sculptural finery on branches of all kinds. Everything was in mumbling shades of grey, black and white. At times, January-grey sky sifted down with chunky white flakes. Other times it was a still palette of grey with no discernible beginning or end, leaving no depth of field to focus on while staring up. Color was of no consequence. This was a world of contrasts. The shades between black and white.
So yesterday, I remembered about the B&W film and decided to head out into the color-intensive world and take a walk down the hill from my house on the path next to a lake. I stuck my CD player in the outside pocket of my camera bag, positioned the earplugs and turned on Leonard Cohen as I set out on the paved pathway.
The film in my camera did not stop talking or pointing the whole time. It forced me to look at shapes. "Ignore the colors, dammit!" it screamed, as the dark blue lake bumped diamonds of light on its surface. When the lipstick red, twiggy branches tried to grab my attention with their bold, naked spring color, my film grabbed me by my shoulders in overly dramatic fashion and whispered in my ear,
"Silhouettes. Shadows. Look for the outline. Those colors mean nothing in our world, babe."
I was irritated at being called 'babe' but had to admit it was right. I ignored the greens, the reds, the yellows. I turned away from mallards. And snubbed the white mountain tops carving the crisp blue sky.
It was a black and white world for this dame, till the film ran out. My walk noir then ended as if it never happened at all. The end.
posted by Laurie at
4:09 PM
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