Do You See The World in Color or Maybe a More Monochromatic View? Finding the Beauty In Both!

I've often heard people talk about dreaming in color or black & white, but I can't honestly say which I dream in, can you?  Along that same line, I often notice whether the people I meet and get to know see the world in color or black and white.  I'm not talking about race here, I'm talking about peoples' perspectives.  I posted a few photos this week on my Facebook photography page (https://www.facebook.com/GAWelter/), all photos of the same view but with different color values.  One was black & white, one was the natural colors seen by eye and one a more dramatic, but cloudy representation all taken with different settings on my camera.  The drastic difference in these images got me thinking.....about how we see things, and how we color our own perspectives.

When thinking about what I might blog about today, and going through recent road trip photos, a bunch of black and white photos caught my eye.  About a month ago we were driving through Buskirk, Eagle Bridge and Cambridge - favorite back roads dotted mostly with old, worn barns, the type that lend themselves well to black and white photography.  That day I took shots of the same scenes in both color and black and white - mostly for comparison purposes.  I didn't notice anything dramatic when I did my initial editing, but today when looking at the thumbnails of the group, something jumped out at me. A message, an analogy of sorts.  If you are a regular of the blog, you know I often use analogies in my messages.  So, today I'm going to share just the black and white versions of our discoveries that day, and in a day or so I'll share the color versions.  I'm curious to see what conclusion you come up with when comparing the two and I'll share my thoughts in the next post.  So come along the back, dusty, dirt roads of  rural Rensselaer and Washington County and enjoy the monochromatic views!

I adore the natural beauty of color photos, but there's something striking and stark about black and white too.  I think most folks have their favorites. There's something natural about seeing old, worn, broken down barns in black and white, perhaps because photos of the old days were in black and white so these shots feel normal to me......that is, until I see their color comparisons.  Here's a sneak peak of one of them.....

See what I mean?  The color version has a completely different feel than the black and white counterpart above.  Stay tuned for Part II of this post when we'll examine the more colorful versions of these views and talk about how our view affects our attitude and perspective.  In the meantime, while it's not very colorful outside, it is temporarily precipitation free so take advantage of it and trust that warm temps and bright, blue skies will eventually replace this rainy, icy day!  Thanks for stopping by Life As I See It!