Black and White

"Doesn't matter if you're black or white."~ Michael Jackson

So this won't really be an informative post, not that anyone reads my posts for information about photography. Honestly, I'm not sure why anyone does read them but statistics show that some of you do so thank ya for that.

This post is basically going to be a conversation with myself about my general dislike for black and white imagery. Well, that's already not true. It's not that I don't like black and white images. I've seen a few in my time that were so breathtakingly beautiful that I never even for a second thought "Wow, wonder what this would look like in color...", but as a stark reality in my life, most of the time that is exactly what I think when I see a beautiful landscape in black and white. So maybe it's just landscapes that I hate to see in black and white.

One of the most dramatic pictures I've ever seen in my life was shot by a photographer who was once in a group I frequented called the "Texas Photo Forum" or "TPF" for short. I don't recall his real name. Even though I've now forgotten the name of his company as well, the pic he posted was one meant for contemplation and to stir emotions. It was in black and white. A man sitting on some dark wood steps, perhaps going up to a garage apartment or something. He was holding a shiny pistol loosely in one hand just kinda dangling it there near his feet with the other hand against his forehead as if he were fighting back the demons inside telling him to put an end to it all. Had that image been in color there is no way it would have had that dramatic impact that it had.

Portraits and architecture tend to be the only things that I enjoy in black and white. I joined a Black and White photo challenge recently to challenge myself to find decent images that I think would look good in black and white or to actually find a place to go and shoot something specifically in black and white but then I would never ever do that because ...."I wonder what that would look like in color."

So I picked a couple of shots and worked them up as black and white images and I almost like a couple of them. But ...I like them better in color. LOL

So that being said...

this was one of my submissions. 

It's ok. It's growing on me. Below is the same shot in color. I almost like the BW better in this shot. So maybe the BW movement is growing on me. Heck I don't know. 

The other I chose was one that seemed particularly boring in color so I thought...ehhh what the hell. 

It's actually gotten more votes than the other. Apparently, along with my inability to be able to draw and visualize how to paint a painting, I can't guess what will appeal to the masses. But hey...that's what makes us all who we are. Different people. 

Anyway that's my crazy black and white rant. As I said, it's growing on me in certain circumstances. 

Expression in Photography

This is Susan and Glynn. I took this photo at their second wedding. I was the photographer at both events. They were both intimate gatherings of family and friends. Both took place in country settings. Both were understated as far as weddings go. Both were beautiful in their own casual country way (which I find immensely appealing). The difference for me, as the photographer, going through these photos from both events to edit them, was the expression on their faces. Particularly his face.
At the first wedding, it was all smiles, perhaps a little nervous. Both of them had been married before. Both of them had children from previous marriages. Through their expressions you could see happiness and perhaps the slightest tinge of uncertainty. Or maybe that is just me looking back on the images knowing what the future held for them, reading things into it that were not there.
When looking through the images from the second wedding, however, I was taken aback by the expressions of joyful tears on his face. I literally was brought to tears myself by his tearful expressions of love for the woman that he treasured more than anything or anyone else in the world. Did he say that to me? No. But I could see it in his face. And I think that is what makes a mediocre photo into something of a timeless treasure. 

The "Urbex" "Rurex" Thing

Gritty Old Sofa in The Baker Hotel

"What is urbex?"

Urban exploration (often shortened as urbex or UE) is the exploration of man-made structures, usually abandoned ruins or not usually seen components of the man-made environment. Photography and historical interest/documentation are heavily featured in the hobby and, although it may sometimes involve trespassing onto private property, this is not always the case and is of innocent intention. ~Wikipedia

The question I am most often asked is this. "Why do you like taking pictures of falling down buildings?"

My fascination began when I was a little girl and my grandmother would babysit me while my Mom was at work. We would tire of being cooped up in the little upstairs apartment and often we would go exploring in the little field next to the apartments where I lived. In that field was a creepy old falling down house and a scary little pond with an island in the center that was surround by thick vegetation. We didn't go near the pond much, it was a rather snakey destination, but for some reason my grandmother seemed as intrigued by the old house and it's contents as I was. 

Some days we would venture down into a basement type room that had cement floors and an old scary wheelchair inside, like OLD, the super old scary kind. Like the one below. 

I don't remember much about the floor level. A few steps up into a room that may or may not have had an old fireplace in it. I cannot see it in my minds eye. But when we went down into that basement, I would get those butterflies in my stomach from fear and excitement and the wonder of old things just being left behind. My Mother would tell us we shouldn't go messing around over there, but the minute she was gone, off we would go through the thigh high weeds back to that grove of trees where that old house sat.

So I guess maybe it started way back then. I remember in junior high and high school various friends and I going into abandoned homes and just looking around. It was never really "breaking in" as there was always a window or door unlocked just begging us to enter. Always the butterflies came, the fear of getting caught and the exhilaration of just being there. And of course, the wonder and speculation about the previous owners. Who were they, where were they now? Why did they leave it all behind?

This abandoned church in Bomarton, Tx. is not really abandoned in the way we generally think of abandoned. A group maintains it and keeps it nice but it is always unlocked and never used. 

Aside from wondering about past inhabitants of the places I explore, I honestly just see beauty in the places you normal folks see a "run down falling down old shack". I love broken windows and peeling paint. I love wooden floors that are so worn you can see the dirt beneath. I love to take pieces of ratty furniture like the couch above and see if I can make it a photo that even someone who doesn't care a whit about urbex would find pleasant to look at. And I like going back in time to whenever the last persons were there. Sometimes you can tell a few things by the paint or the furnishings or even newspapers and pictures left behind. 

Combine all of those things with the fact that I live in an area of North Texas which yields very little in the way of traditional beautiful landscapes except for once or twice a year when we have bluebonnets and blooming things and you have yet another reason for photographing the things I do. Convenience. The old run down shacks will be there til they fall down. They are not going to look prettier with time. There is no hurry to snap them while they are still glorious. The decay of them makes them appealing to me. Crusty old relics of cars in pastures, rotting barely standing barns. These are the things that I love. 

Rurex : The rural counterpart of urban exploration which consists of exploring abandoned rural structures such as houses, "ghost towns", etc

The Baker Suite was where the owner of the hotel lived. It was also where he was found unconscious from a heart attack. I am not sure if he died there but he was pronounced at a local hospital. 

The interior of the suite is still beautiful despite the decay the years have brought. There is now a renovation plan in place for the Baker Hotel and possible reopening as early as 2017. 

To sum it all up, I love urbex, rurex type of photo shoots. When my friend and I recently went to the Baker Hotel, we had to crawl in through a tiny basement window and go through the bowels of the giant to get to where sunlight flooded in through boarded windows. We both had butterflies the whole time we were there. At least I know I did. 

Click here to see my Baker Hotel shots. 

And to quote Forrest Gump..."that's all I have to say about that..."

The Texas Gulley Cat

I can't really explain my love for this picture. It's obviously not the subject. I think those things are just the ugliest things ever created. To find beauty in that would be simply insane which, lets all face it, I am. But still. 
I think there are two things about it...first I love the processing. This is one of the first images I processed using Nik Color Efex. I really just love so much about that. I'm still in my trial and trying to decide if I can spend the bux on it in my extremely poor state. Starving artist doesn't even begin to cover what I'm doing lately. 
The other thing I love about it is the memory it conjures up. When my oldest daughter was a little less than two years old we still lived at the hell hole in the country. A horrid single wide trailer that was just freakin' awful. It was the Jordan starter trailer and every Jordan who ever got married for the wrong reasons was doomed to spend the beginning of their marriage there. 
My mother and my grandmother would often come out to visit and sometimes we would come back to town with them for a bit. Always on the ride back home, when looking out across the weedy, dry, dusty field between that road and my house, my grandmother would ask my daughter "Do you see any gulley cats?" She meant some sort of wild animal. Just a joke really. But my daughter always saw a pump jack and therefore she began to assume that those old rusty noisy pumpjacks were the "gulley cats" of my grandmother's vivid imagination. 
So I do like this picture, because it brings back to me all those memories of when times were "so hard" but seemingly now so simple.