Mama please take my monochrome away.

Today was typically monochromatic for this time of year, the winter kind of day that we’ve been blessedly spared for most of this winter season. Coming off four days of semi-debilitating (that is, annoying more than anything else) back pain, despite the black-and-white and shades of gray coloring our world, it was nice to get outside, even nice to point the camera at something besides sunsets, sunrises, dogs, cats--the usual winter things you look for when the world seems otherwise without color.

I haven’t thought in black-and-white, really, in a lot of years, not since Tri-X Pan days, when I worked for a while as a sports photographer for a local newspaper, then as a photojournalist in the army. Once I left school and the army, I never did black-and-white again.

As a photographer I am more photojournalist (or photographic journal-writer) than artist, more interested in the “content” of an image than the image itself. That is not to say that photojournalists cannot produce art, or that photographic artists never produce excellent photojournalism. It really is a difference of approach, how you go about looking at potential “subjects” and even at that tool you carry in your hands and (when you’re lucky) begins to feel like a part of you, an extension not only of your eyes, but of your mind and heart, as well.

This means I take a LOT of pictures, some of them good, most of them ho-hum, some of them godawful. This also means that I have little time for “post processing” and other digital-darkroom manipulation of the images I “capture.” For the most part, that is not a bad thing, I think. My camera does a pretty good job at exposure and all that other stuff all on its own--while I COULD manipulate the image later, there is no real reason, most times, given that it is not the “image” I’m after, but rather more in the life captured IN the image, if any.

Which brings me back to monochromatic today, sort of.

Two of the dogs--Cecil and Nina--having charged off toward the back 40 or down to the river, the other one, Xena, lying comfortably in the snow, and the cats all inside, there wasn’t much at which to point the camera besides the black-and-white landscape, especially since, given the aforementioned back problem, I wasn’t able to get down and crawl around on the ground, etc.

And I began to see in black-and-white again.

It truly is a different way of looking at things. First, you look at shapes and patterns and lines, stuff defined not by color, but by, well, their shapes and patterns and lines. Then you look at contrast--you want black blacks, white whites, and as many of Ansel Adams’s “zones” in between as you can manage. The chisel-plowed field to the north, the chisel-plowed then anhydrous-drilled field to the east, along with trees in both directions, multi-shaded gray sky, all offered opportunity.

I looked and shot and shot and looked until my fingers were nearing frostbite (can’t manipulate a camera with gloves on, and it WAS cold), then came inside, plugged the SD card into the computer, inspected what I had.

“Muddy.” That’s a word we used to use to describe B&W photos that lacked those black blacks and white whites, but were instead only varying shades of gray. In “real” darkrooms back in the day, we could use “burning” and “dodging” and other tricks I’ve forgotten after my 30-something-year separation from trays of developer and rinse and fixer, smells of chemicals and thick black felt hung over doors, working under reddish light, watching images appear slowly, then leap into view on the sheet of paper you’re swishing slowly and methodically in each tray successively.

“Digital darkrooms” aren’t nearly as much fun, but they’re functional, and I admit I was even satisfied with most results. To be able to transform the image I saw on the computer monitor into something more closely resembling what I had seen through my own eyes . . . “Cool” only begins to describe it. And while the final product may be “boring,” I’m happy with it--especially because it reproduced what I remembered.

Trips down memory lane, back into a black-and-white world, can be fun, frozen fingers and all.

That said, I’m sticking with color and with my non-post-processing world. Call me lazy, call me a non-artist. It’s entertaining to visit sometimes, but the black-and-white world is no longer as comfortable for me as it was when I was 18 or 20 or 22. Figure that one out.

Come on, feel the noise.

I reintroduced music into the house the other day.

It had been pretty quiet around here for a couple of years, ever since I disconnected the one computer on which I used to download music videos because the computer had the misfortune of being located in the living room, which was then undergoing renovation, and started using this computer, the “play” computer in my office, for working with photos, everyday news-browsing, everyday EVERYthing.

I’d gotten used to the quiet, and in fact mostly enjoyed it. Once in a while I would miss being able to hear, as well as watch, news videos and so forth, but for the most part, it was as easy getting used to quiet as it was getting used to no television. I haven’t watched television in almost 10 years, not so much as a matter of choice, but because of my work schedule and the fact that I’ve lived in places where non-cable TV reception is almost nil. I still watch DVD movies at least a couple of times a week, but obviously have no clue what “Jersey Shore” might be, and wasn’t particularly heartbroken or even much affected by the demise of “All My Children” or “Seinfeld” or whatever. “Out of sight, out of mind.” Or, “Absence makes the heart go yonder.” Or something. And I’ve never gotten out of the habit of blasting music in my car on the way to the grocery store or to my parents’ house or even just on a sightseeing trip up on Pizz Ridge.

For no particular reason, this past weekend I decided that it was TOO quiet around here. It dawned on me that I should go ahead and re-hook up the computer on which I used to watch music videos, etc. THEN it dawned on me that, since the speakers on that computer were built into the monitor, all I really needed to do was swap out the monitors. Duh.

Yeah, I’m slow, but sometimes I get there.

The monitor swap worked, and now I have sound again--and when I pulled up Annie Lennox’s version of “Whiter Shade of Pale,” it hit me how much I’d missed it.

Since Saturday I have been a YouTube fool, seeking out long-”lost” (to me) videos, downloading and playing them. Free-associating took me from Annie Lennox to Bruce Springsteen to Madonna (and back again and again to Madonna) and to Starship and Neil Diamond and . . . The list goes on. Of course.

I didn’t stop with getting the sound back on the computer. THEN I went out and bought a portable radio/CD player. “Whole hog or none,” right?

Maybe I should have consulted my housemates before perpetrating these massive changes, however. The cats definitely are NOT fans of rock and roll, which is a bit surprising considering that at least two of them, as kittens, used to love it when I would plug in a movie with lots of gunfire, explosions and jet planes (think “Iron Eagle” and “Top Gun“), and absolutely despised anything “mushy” (think “chick flicks”).

Cecil the dog is put on instant, baffled alert by anything involving conversation (news clips, etc.), which again is surprising given that throughout his young life he has spent eight hours a day, five days a week in my office as I listen to dictated medical reports on speakers. On the other hand, he seems purely fascinated by anything involving Stevie Nicks (especially “Sara“ and “Gypsy“ and “Landslide“), and absolutely loves “Whiter Shade of Pale,” Madonna’s “Live to Tell,” and the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” soundtrack.

Guess there’s no accounting for taste.