Black and White or colors

 

I used to say that Black and White photography was my favorite thing to do and in some ways it still is. But who doesn't love color? Bright beautiful colors?

The photo above was a fern leaf on a plant attached to a rock in the creek bottom. It stuck out from the rock and was surrounded by snow during that last rainy day we had.

In my way of looking at things, I thought it would make a nice black and white shot with the leaf isolated. Then I could admire the patterns of nature. An additional surprise was the drop of water that is hanging on the leaf frond at the top of the photo.

On the 8th of January we had some incredible fog and frost. I hiked through the woods to look for interesting shapes and patterns. Since the light was still quite dim and flat, it was hard to get anything interesting except shapes.

When I took these I noted that there was nearly no color at all in the tree trunks so I went with Black and White for the the shapes.

Some of the Ironwood aka Hornbean trees keep their leaves until spring and I just love the slight color contrast they give the dark forest.

Below is a small understory Hornbeam - Ironwood really provides a bit of interesting color to the backdrop of a large old twisted maple tree.

I came to the edge of the woods and looked up at Staghorn Sumacs that are so brilliant in the fall. 

I loved how entangled they looked in the frost with the forest behind them. Moody as all get out. To me it looks like a scientist's drawing of brain synapses. I don't know why I think of it that way.

It feels.
Entangled.

I moved on to my favorite Locust Tree and tried to find a clear shot of one of the branches without a background of brush and forest. I took one shot of the branches against the sky that was just okay.

The photo of the one below appealed to my mood much more in the final cut. The foreground itself was naturally black and white, the oaks in the far distance lent some color to the photo.

I think this one and the Sumac are my favorite for that day.

The very next morning, the frost was still around but the intense fog cleared and there was sunlight.

Here color ruled.
The pinkish orange sunrise colored the land and the frosted trees in the forest.

Blogger and Cell phones

Blogger sent me a message that I was in error or the blog was not working well... and they wanted me to change it in order to be device friendly.

Blogger has been nagging me for a while. Apparently my content of the written word was too wide for mobile devices and people would have to turn their phones sideways to read it better. So I kept getting nice casual messages like: Mobile Usability issues detected. A small list was included saying the text was too small.

My text is 'too' small of a size. Hmmm? People would have to pinch and expand their screens.

OHHHH Horrors what a terrible hellish thing is this?

So this is Medium Text and I could change the text in the advanced setting to larger than 15px. I just am not sure about it.

This is normal text. I can read it on my phone but it does appear a bit small. But not so small that I need a magnifying glass or to pinch and expand and twist my smartphone around. 

I suppose less and less people are using laptops or desktops to do their internet reading. 

Next up? Yeah. My smartphone is something I have not mastered yet.

Well I can use the google maps and MapMyWalk and other nifty things, but my first smartphone was set up by my Grand daughter Lily and this one ... well, I'm pretty much hopeless as far as certain things go.

When I told my son I didn't have much memory in my phone he sort of snorted a laugh and asked me what my Phone Storage was. Um. Storage. Not much. 

What kind of cheap ass phone do you have? He asked [or some such words]. Well, I have a cheap assed phone that only cost me 50 bucks but I never added an SD card for more 'memory' ... storage, or whatever because ... truth be told....

I have no idea what I am doing.

Period.

But at the same time I'm not out a lot of money if I totally screw things up and wreck the phone, right?

Yep, I am behind the times.
I can recall the days when my Grandpa used to pick up his phone and listen in on the party line at his home. Phones with a dial. 

The newness of push button phones. 

The awesome new phones that had NO cord! 

And my wonderful smartphone that 50% of the time has no service inside my home. No service at all in the valley. It even goes Ding to warn me: NO SERVICE! 

The whole reason for the discussion on cell phones and storage was my upcoming mini trip and traffic/construction reroutes. My son asked me to use an app on my phone to assist me in getting around the construction and I replied ...

there is no room on my phone for that.....

How about those glory days of driving without GPS, air conditioning, electric windows, smart phones, and using something called paper maps?

Yeah, those days are gone.

I still carry a paper map in my car. 

But I did update my blogger view supposedly to make things easier for others to read. 

Not that anyone really wants to.

When I take my mini trip I think I'm just going to leave from home early and wander some of the back roads with Pandora blaring music out from my speakers. Of course THAT is really what makes that smartphone priceless!

One very cool feature I do have on my Subaru is a button I can push that says SOS. It also alerts Starlink if I've been in a crash. So there is that. No laying in a ditch out of sight for hours. A Blue Button for help and a Red Button for emergencies. Something that is comforting while transporting a person with health issues.

Have a Monday.