Black & White Winter Photoshoot

| Allison

Hello friends!

The weather has been awfully cold here recently, so going outdoors for exercise has felt a bit daunting. However, Sully and I braved the cold one day to take a walk in a local park. Everything was windy, brown, and soggy from a recent flood. But I took my camera along and tried to pick out interesting bits of nature to show off beautifully in a black and white format.

Did I succeed in making interesting photos from an ugly landscape? Read on to see what you think. 🙂

featured image 339

We took this walk after a massive rainstorm turned the river in our town into a huge lake and made all the tiny creeks into rivers themselves.

DSC_2977

I love the texture of lichen on tree bark. Its stacked shingles look furry even though they’re hard.

DSC_2978

Lacy dried grasses waving above the sodden undergrowth.

DSC_2979

Interesting scaly bark on this branch. Black and white is great for highlighting textures like this!

DSC_2981

I love finding twigs with little buds on them even in the dead of winter.

DSC_2982

A lot of my subjects were fallen bits of trees on the black asphalt path. Like this shard of twisted vine.

DSC_2985

The downy fuzz inside a sycamore seed ball. So soft!

DSC_2990

Sweet gum pods have a weird, alien spikiness to them, don’t you think?

DSC_2991

This part of the path was full of them, dotting the striped shadows.

DSC_2992

An epic picture of Sully’s beloved trench coat blowing in the wind. 🙂 He said this looked like an album cover, haha.

DSC_3000

Shadows are another really fun thing to play with in black and white. I love the composition of this picture!

DSC_3001

More lichen. So many ruffles and stripes.

DSC_3005

I was excited to have a black backdrop for these pictures, but unfortunately it ended up less smooth and dark than I anticipated. Ah well, the extra texture adds to the crispness of this photo.

DSC_3010

Ooh I like this one. Even in black and white, you can imagine how these leaves glowed in the sun.

DSC_3011

A few lone sycamore seed balls surfing the sky. Sky shots are great for a more minimal, light background.

DSC_3014

I found a nest! Or what Sully thought looked like a half-finished nest. That’s something fun about the trees being bare in winter: you can treasure-hunt for bird homes previously buried in green leaves.

DSC_3017

I found a cool-looking oak branch with acorns which Sully carried home for me. Love this shot!

DSC_3018

When we were hurrying back to the car, trying to withstand the cold (well I was cold – Sully was probably just fine 😛 ), I had to stop for this delicate twig casting a perfect shadow on the path.

DSC_3021

And last but not least, the bold, blunt branches of a fig tree with no more figs on it to eat.

DSC_3022

I hope you had as much fun scrolling through those pictures as I did taking them – except I hope you are a lot warmer, ha.

Which picture(s) did you like best?

Thanks so much for reading, my friends, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***

P. S. Photos taken with my Nikon D7200 and a 50mm lens. Edited with Lightroom.

24 thoughts on “Black & White Winter Photoshoot”

  1. That’s why ther’s no country like Portugal: 8 degrees, sunshine….yesterday rainy though…
    Take a plane!
    Maria Marinho( Amarante)- 50 kms far from Porto

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. Hi Allison, these are so beautiful! I love all the contrast! My favourites were probably the sweet pod gum ones, but they were are lovely. 🙂

    ~ Megan

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Ooh, these are so cool, Allison! I love that black and white really brings out unique details and textures. I love them all, especially the 4th picture of scaly bark, the photo of Sully holding the oak branch (looks like a 1940’s pic), and the last one of the fig tree branches against the sky.
    So much beauty even in winter. We had one day of snow that melted after only several hours. But I’m glad we still got some in Texas. 🙂
    God bless!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks Valentine! Yes I love that about black and white too. Haha yes I agree, that picture of Sully holding the branch does look vintage!
      How fun to get snow, even briefly! We got a quickly-melting snow recently too.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  9. Black and white photography captures the texture especially of trees and flowers. For me, it is also a type of film that was used in the 40’s and some of the 50’s. I think it makes me look at the past and I see it as a very creative choice. Thank you Allison! I loved the sycamore!

    Like

    Reply

  10. I like the one with the trees and water, because well, so long as nobody gets hurt or their property damaged I love flooding. I love the effect of the boundary between land and water getting disolved and mixed up. In the UK we’re getting a metric shit tonne of rain at the moment so there’s plenty of it, though unfortunately it is causing damage and disruption. Hopefully the pair of you got to enjoy it without wet feet..

    Like

    Reply

    1. Yesss I know exactly what you mean – there’s something magical about flooding, in the same way snow and fog dramatically change a landscape. Wow, hope your home and land isn’t affected by the flood so you can enjoy it from afar! Other than a minor basement leak we escaped pretty well. 🙂

      Like

      Reply

      1. Fortunately we’re on high ground so no risk to our house, though when it rained really heavily a while back quite a few of the local roads were flooded over and on the lower ground a lot of fields were underwater. One of recent blog posts has a link to a video I made of some of the flooding on one of my favourite bits of river if you’re interested

        Like

        Reply

Leave a comment