monochrome photography

lens-artists: the power of juxtaposition

As I visited various lens artists I was amazed how photographers would “see” and explain juxtaposition within their images. As a visual leaner I was then WOWed by the photographs in 500px … the expertise and creative use of juxtaposition, amazingly inspiring.

I then traveled through my media file to see if there were any images that may fit into examples discussed within the 500px article. So … hesitantly I offer the images below: near versus far, big versus small, human versus object, light versus dark, and side by side placement. I hope you enjoy.

near versus far
big versus small
human versus object
side by side placement
light versus dark

Thank you for visiting … I hope you enjoyed this brief journey encouraged by of Patti’s invitation to “to explore juxtaposition as a photographic technique.”

lens-artists: unusual crop

Contemplative and landscape photographs submitted in response to Ritva’s lens-artist challenge: encouraging photographers to deliberately defy traditional framing conventions.

Photographing what is … the morning’s light

landscape images cropped with a focus on negative space.

lens-artists: what astonishes you

The beauty of the world as seen through a camera’s lens. I’ve found over the years that a simple photo walk opens one to the amazing beauty of the world…seen as if it is the first time.

The art of photography transforms a current photograph to an image that looks as if it was created during the 1960-1970s.

How a camera’s setting will add a dimension of unique art…

Hop on over to Wandering Dawgs to join a journey through what astonishes you with Beth

lens-artists: designs and shapes

Well…this week’s lens-artists challenge is, indeed, a challenge. While visiting a number of lens-artists’ post I sense that this challenge is one of joyful engagement. I, on the other hand, am stumped. It must be like speaking/writing English with limited understanding of grammar … that is, if it sounds right then it must be clear, coherent, and effective communication. Yes, no, maybe?

So I went to Google and engaged a question and answer session with AI. AI tells me that shapes in photography are geometric (circles, squares, triangles) and organic. Shapes define composition, create structure and evoke emotion.

Photography design is the art of using core principles like balance, contrast, and emphasis, along with elements like, shape, and color to create visually compelling images.

While my photography is guided by an understanding of various elements of photography, the major guiding tool is … yep, the subjective experience.

Thank you Tina (Travels and Trifles) for this challenge.

P.S. AI defines subjective experience as …an individual’s personal, internal, and first-person perspective of consciousness, encompassing unique sensations, feelings, and interpretations of the world. Unlike objective events that can be observed by others…

reweaving within grieving

the uncertainty within grief’s reweaving memories…

The personal story is a narrative of our unique sense of identity.  We create our identities through the stories we weave onto a tapestry that is formed against the background of our family mythologies. We pull threads from of an assemblage of recalled details from our pasts and weaved them into images that cast us in whatever role corresponds with our current situations, feelings, thoughts, or actions. The colored threads of this tapestry are often re-embroidered to reflect the creative and dynamic process of our perspectives as we shift in, out, and between various roles, feeling states, and cognitions.  As we reflect on our self-created images we are in turn affected by them; therefore, there is an unconscious re-weaving of our tapestries. ~The Meditative Journey with Saldage

autumn sun

December 1, 2025, Monday morning … last night’s snow powder left by the season’s first snowfall … mystery creating mist …

First snow! I see it young every winter, 
Yet my face grows old 
As Winter comes.

~The Diary of Izumi Shikibu (1002-1003 AD)*

*Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan

shadows of squares -6

The Art of the Egg or the Egg and I

“It occurred to me that I have done an awful lot of egg drawings and paintings. Not quite sure why. It is a subject I use in my drawing classes quite frequently and I tell my students that if they can draw an egg, they can draw anything. It is like a little creature, a tiny model – and symbolic of so much: new life, fertility, possibilities … It is the perfect shape to to practice tone and get the 3-D effect. Some love this exercise; some will never look at an egg again!”*

*Catherine Wells,
Director, Pointe-St-Charles Art School

Visit The Life of B to join November’s Shadows of Squares

shadows of squares -5

In Adelbert von Chamisso’s, Peter Schlemihl, Peter the title character of the 1814 novella, sells his shadow to the Devil for a bottomless wallet, only to find that a man without a shadow is shunned by human societies. Later when the devil wants to return his shadow to him in exchange for his soul, Schlemihl rejects the proposal and throws away the wallet. After this he seeks refuge in nature and travels around the world in scientific exploration, with the aid of seven-league boots.*

Schlemihl finds reconciliation with others as they care for him during a long illness and he no longer searches for his shadow. After he recovers, he returns to his scientific studies and in time develops a deep harmony with both nature and his personal self.

*Seven-league boots are an element in European folklore. The boots allow the person wearing them to take strides of seven leagues per step, resulting in great speed. The boots are often presented by a magical character to the protagonist to aid in the completion of a significant task.

Asked which book by another author he would most like to claim as his own work, Italo Calvino once said without hesitation, Adelbert von Chamisso’s Peter Schlemiel. First published in 1814, this brilliant novel is not only a precursor of Poe, Kafka, and the magic realists – it is a timeless fable with a remarkably contemporary flavor.

Visit The Life of B to join November’s Shadows of Squares

shadows of squares -4

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” ~Carl Jung*

*Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychologist, and psychotherapist who founded Analytical Psychology.

shadows of squares -3

light and shadow…ongoing movements … playfully evolving … never ending … story-ing nature’s transitions of … light touching objects … creating shadows … forming … redefining … altering … narrating reconciliations of opposites.

Visit The Life of B to join November’s Shadows of Squares