Black & White | rfljenksy – Practicing Simplicity

“Without black, no color has any depth. But if you mix black with everything, suddenly there’s shadow – no, not just shadow, but fullness. You’ve got to be willing to mix black into your palette if you want to create something that’s real.”–Amy Grant

“The first of all single colors is white … We shall set down white for the representative of light, without which no color can be seen; yellow for the earth; green for water; blue for air; red for fire; and black for total darkness.” –Leonardo Da Vinci

This week the theme at Jake Sprinter’s SUNDAY POST is Black & White. Black and whites are one of my favorite types of photos to work with. As usual I have too many to choose from, but as I was looking through my pictures to find a few I decided to focus on my pictures from Korea and specifically pictures from some of my hikes. I lived in Korea for 3 years and hiked with a variety of people nearly every Saturday. Through summer, winter, fall and spring I hiked. We completed amazing mountain hikes and sometimes city walking tour “hikes”.

After every hike the group would go eat some amazing Korean food. Some of my very favorite memories from Korea are from these hikes and the meals we would eat after the hike. I became a bit obsessed with my black and whites and I think the reason for this was because Korea was such a noisy, chaotic, colorful country that by turning these bits of Korea into black and whites I had found a way to mute the country a bit.

Ironically through these black and white photos I kept seeing bits and pieces of several of my last blogs as well.

Past with Present: It was a present day merge of older traditional people re-enacting an historical time in Korea with the new and young. The black and white to me made it appear even older than what they were portraying.

Turn About: A photo of people taking photos at an traditional festival.

Shadows: What I love about black and whites is that they seem to create shadows without any intent. You can take an ordinary picture and after you enlarge it you notice how the shadows just throw themselves at you. As if with the color gone they come out to celebrate. Black and white completely changes the dynamics, location, place and time of a picture. I think that’s what I love about old photos. You can never really say when they were taken. They are ageless and timeless.

I love urban settings for black and whites, but felt compelled to use my Korean shots as Korea is definitely not a black and white country, it is full of color and richness. Also these pictures were my first attempts at working with black and whites. Enjoy.

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Black & White in the Arts Book – When my daughters started out their lives I read to them. As they grew I read with them. One of my favorite books that my daughter Miranda was assigned to read was a book by Lois Lowry, “The Giver”. I don’t want to give the story away, so I will just say that the story is a futuristic journey into a society where choice does not exist. It’s a society where color has been removed and there is only black and white. The protagonist, Jonas, is an 12 year old boy who

has been given the tasking of being the receiver of memories. As he is exposed to experiences and memories he realizes how NOT black and white the world is. An amazing story with an emotional ending and a great representation of what it could mean for a world to exist only in black and white.

Movie – Now lastly just for fun and a completely different take on black and white, one of my favorite musicals “Hair” and its own personal take on black and white. Remember it’s a musical from the 70’s Enjoy.