I’ve been collecting flower photos with my Leica Monochrome for the past two days when the light was right. With this camera, light is everything, especially the sun’s angle. Many people have been asking for black and white flower photos, but I’m learning that the light has to be just right, and it usually isn’t.

So I pick my moments. I found some. My point-and-shoot days are over. The Leica just doesn’t work that way. I have to consider, imagine and work on every single photograph. Every image needs a different setting. No shortcuts with this camera.

Flowers are beautiful when captured in color, but they are also beautiful in black and white.

There is great beauty in these pictures; I think black and white is said to capture the soul of things, and seeing flowers in this way asks us to look at them differently and imagine what we know them to be.

Color and light aren’t only about color; monochrome work is a kind of color.

It was exciting to spend some time with the monochrome in my garden bed; I love this camera very much and am still figuring out how to use it. I need to give it a chance to show its stuff; this was a good week.

I’m learning that some photos are monochrome photos, and some are simply not. I’m figuring out which is which.

The color photos of the flowers are beautiful and mysterious, and it feels almost as if the flowers have souls, and we can get right inside of them. The monochrome photos are different. They whisper and are shy. One has to really look at them. They rarely shout.

 

 

The black and white photos are soft and quiet,  they capture the wonder of nature and the power of a flower to touch us and lift us up, something most people just can’t do for us or won’t.

 

I liked the bug in this photo and wanted to leave it in the picture. I appreciate the way it picks up details that I miss.

The Leica is unlike any other camera I’ve ever used; it has a mind of its own. If it disagrees with you, it simply goes its own way and challenges you to do something about it.

It is just as stubborn as I am.

 

This image caught my attention. It is mystical, quiet, and beautiful. I looked at it before I meditated yesterday.  I could never have captured this feeling with a different camera.

 

The poppies are perfect subjects for monochrome; the light loves them, and they are strong,  individualistic – and delicate. No two are alike, they don’t live long, they whisper in my ear.

 

The poppies stand out against the barn and the other backdrops on the farm.

 

This photo has a lot of emotion. In this heat, these pictures are calm and peaceful; they are gentle and safe in a strange way.

None of my photos are watermarked or copyrighted. You are free to use them any way you wish (except selling them.) Thanks for watching and listening, my cameras have transformed me, everyone.