a time to keep silence

A time to keep silence.... this is pretty much the perfect way to describe how I like to be when I'm taking photos. It is a time for just me, to escape the hustle and bustle, the sometimes relentless expectations, my workload, unfortunately my home stress due to having a child with ASD, and just life distractions in general.

I love to stand, almost like a flamingo ;-) and just watch the world go by. When I am shooting landscapes, I look for clouds - I just adore looking at them and hearing their names. I can almost tell by looking at them what type of sunset will ensue. And lately, I am looking for tiny humans. I call them tiny humans because I like to incorporate as much sky as I can into the shot, so in essence they become tiny but to me they are the soul of the photo because they portray something I am feeling at the time.

18mm, 1/160,  ISO 800,  f/8, ND8.

conveying mood

I am probably not alone in thinking that b&w helps to convey mood, particularly those of sadness and isolation. I am partial to b&w portraits, there is something special about them with no distracting colours of clothing etc. My focus tends to go straight to the eyes to see what emotion the person is feeling which is very powerful to me.

I do have some portraits that I will share in this project but today I'm going to share a landscape that I converted to b&w. There is a solitary figure on the beach in silhouette and while I do not know what she was actually thinking, when I was taking the photo, she portrayed to me a deep sense of sadness by being all alone on this wide stretch of beach. Now the sadness was implied by me, she may well have been thinking it was a magnificent sunset and had simply stopped to enjoy the beautiful view but in b&w, it really highlighted her isolation and how small we are in comparison to the earth and it's true size and magnificence. 

This shot was taken at Henley Beach. In terms of geographical interest, Grange beach which I featured in my introductory posts, is the next beach over going north. Henley and Grange both have beautiful jetties and it is great exercise is to walk between them. And of course in between, is a beautiful and serene stretch of beach. If you are ever in South Australia  visit them. They are not tourist attractions, so you will find quietness (particularly during the week), good food in the foreshore restaurants and wonderful views all year around. Exceptions are in times of heat waves as everyone is there cooling off :)).

18-55mm, 1/60, ISO 800, f/8, ND8.