Color and Monochrome Portraits

I tried some more black and white portraits.  And then color.  

Do some portraits need to be in color?

Stephanie is a Boston banker visiting college friends in West Hartford.

What do you think?  Color or B&W for Stephanie?

JoAnne is a Hartford educator who I saw as she left a film at Hartford's art museum.

JoAnne is very colorful, of course, but is black and white OK, too?

Jose worked on the concrete base for Calder's Stegosaurus decades ago.

Color or monochrome for Jose?

Country Roads

I took a drive in northern Connecticut.

A field of sweet corn in Granby, with a baptist church beyond.

A daylily field in Suffield.

Going to rot in Bloomfield.

And, tobacco fields in Suffield.

Tobacco Barns

Centuries of spring floods have made the Connecticut River valley fertile.  A longtime crop has been the big, smooth tobacco leaves that wrap cigars.  In my 40 years in Greater Hartford, the sight of

 long red barns in fields near the airport has been an iconic Connecticut postcard view.

This spring, the owner of the field demolished dozens of the barns.  I saw fewer than a dozen still standing.  The tobacco harvest continues around the unsightly remains.  Even though I am

 not a smoker, I am a bit sad to see the end of this bit of local history.

Black and White Portraits

I spent half an hour in West Hartford's Blueback Square, shooting black and white portraits.

Usually any B&W photos I show were shot in color and edited into B&W.

I wanted to try shooting directly in B&W.

An elderly man sat down near me.  As I approached, Frank said, "Guess how old I am."   104!  Really.  He recited an original poem, something like "Today I am 104 and I am looking for more;  Next I will be 105 and still alive."  Frank went all the way through 110   An optimist!

Effie is from Greece.  She was in a hurry to pick up her kids but was still willing to pose.

Robert is a personal trainer.  (I know that is hard to believe.)

Anekah.

Reece is Anekah's friend.  The neck tattoo reads "Fearless."  I would add "Fierce."

James and Robert are partners who own a small trucking company.
Robert's eyes are open.  Really.



Edwin works in maintenance at Blueback Square.

Daylilies

Daylilies and rudbeckia bloom in front of a new fence being painted with plants and flowers.

I will show the fence itself when the painting is finished.

Yesterday in the Park

 

Swallowtail.

Annual garden.

Bees.

Jay.

Madison.

Geese and visitors.

Rudbeckia and daisies.

Black

The August theme of "Black" is deceptively hard.  In my part of the world, August is either green when it rains or yellow if there is drought, sprinkled heavily with all the colors of summer blooms.
So, I searched the archives.  It had to be a color photo, not a black and white one.  Here are some.

This is the Administration building of Brown University (my alma mater) through Van Wickle gates.
The gates are special to Brown students.  They open twice each year, inward in September to welcome new students and outward in May for graduates to leave.

A black bird and a black gator 

A super moon last February.



Maybe more gray than black, but this was a foggy early morning in Naples.

And . . . the beautiful Josie.  I wish I saw her near a black wall.

Does it have to be recent?  OK.  Driving through eastern Connecticut on Sunday I came across a distinctive black-walled building undergoing renovation in Norwich.

Click here to see other interpretations of the "Black" theme.