01/26 – New Beginnings

New Beginnings of what? What does it mean? I’m glad you asked, or I hope you wanted to ask. :-).

This is the first of themed fortnightly posting in black and white and I have joined some of my friends in this 26 image challenge for 2015. So what is my own personal challenge? My aim in this challenge is to develop my black and white photography to tell some of my stories better than colour pictures could.

The image you see below illustrates my point. Here is a skilled craftsman who has a workshop full of modern tools and machines. Here, though, he is using a labour intensive method and an antique tool, to achieve the effect he is after. It is exactly the right tool for the job. It’s not necessarily the easiest way, but it is the best way for him and for what he is making.

Black and white photography is where it all started – historically and also personally for many of us. We now have tools that allow us to process our digital photographs in colour or in black and white, as we choose. So usually we choose colour as… everyone loves colour. And the picture comes out of the camera in colour. But that’s not always best. Sometimes colour is a distraction. Sometimes, to tell a photographic story with the emphasis where you want it, black and white is the answer. My aim is to discover the right time and the best way to use this medium to tell my stories.

In case you are wondering, the craftsman here is in fact my husband Steven tells me that this plane was probably owned by his grandfather who would have given it to him. He doesn’t know who the previous name belonged to, but it was apparently the custom in England, on the death of a craftsman, such as a furniture maker or cabinetmaker for his tools to be sold to help his widow. His own grandfather (also a skilled woodworker) might have come by the plane this way.