Is This Picture Black & White?

When we look at our world most of us see the many different colors or do we?

I look at the picture above many thoughts come into my head. It is a beach scene, in the back ground there are some houses, to the left there is an outfall with the high tide marker and if I look carefully there are some people with some dogs.

The picture is in black and white or more correctly it is the many shades of the grey scale which the film is capable of capturing. When I took the photograph I used traditional black and white film, I look at it the picture has an atmosphere which the traditional photographic method has added to it.

I take many photographs, photography and video are a real part of how I earn my living, I am an observer and the information I look at and listen to are converted into my MP3 downloads and very soon my first meditation video.

The picture is deceiving because it was a very bright day with a blue sky, due to the latitude of the film (latitude in this interpretation is the films ability record a certain number of shades) the high lights in the foreground make the clouds seem darker.

I have interpreted the scene as I wish it to be seen.

This part of the shore line is called Anderby Creek. I walk from the car park through the sand dune to the beach, I can turn left and walk north, I can turn right and walk south, either way, as the walk progresses I will pass through other named beaches, I do not worry about their names, the whole beach is Anderby Creek to me!

Even though the picture is in black and white, I color it in my mind, I can make it a drama or a place of serenity. In other words, as I look at the picture and because there is less spectral information, my imagination can change or even distort what is in front of me, the evidence is there in plain black and white, even then I will only see what I want to see and the atmosphere of the moment can and will become what my mind will make of it.

At one extreme this is creative imagination, this creative imagination is the principal tool of my work, on the other side of the balance of the mind it is illusion and or self deception! I have to be careful that reality is within my work and words.

Evidence has to now be a real thread throughout the tapestry of my words, thoughts, ideas and concepts. It is this need for evidence, that has changed my feeling about people, religion, spiritual ideals, etc. I am thankful for this, this need for reality.

I feel that people are not interested and never will really be taken in, by any one who believes they know how or why anyone else should live or think.

The picture has taught me to see that I only see some things one way, for example it does not matter which way I turn on the beach “It’s all Anderby Creek to me” I must remind my self to recognize other places on my journey. The picture has also taught me to be careful that I do not distort the evidence which I find!

Life is just not black and white.

It is a colorful, full of beauty and amazing people who do not want to go with the flow!

You can click on the pictures to expand them…