Today’s Photo Friday is entitled: Black & White (Photos © Jan Marshall)

Follow the links below for other stunning entries (I will add links as entries come in!):

Blahblahblog  & Just for Fun & Sky Windows

and a warm welcome to: Idea Jump

I love taking black and white photographs. Many people ask, “why black and white when colours are so brilliant and colour images can be so seductive?”  Well to me, that is a rhetorical question.

• The way I see it is that black and white photography is the original form of this art so will always deserve a place in the pantheon of legitimate photographic art forms.
• I love the simplicity and stark contrast that highlight the sharp focus of black and white photographs.
• Black and white photographs last much longer- despite the claims for today’s colour printing. Surely, I can’t be the only photographer (albeit amateur) that wants my photgraphs to outlive me! I have some wonderful photos of my own great grandmother (who died many years before I was born) and they are as crisp and clear as the day they were printed.
• Black and white photography is a wonderful way to capture beauty and stop time. There aren’t many of us who don’t look even better in black and white! Get someone to take a picture of you in black and white and you’ll see what I mean!
• There is also an inherent dignity about black and white pictures that appeals to me.

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Anyway, my own entry today is a black and white portrait of my beloved cat Henry (1985 – 2004).It is a snap (in that I just picked up the camera and snapped the picture) so there was no posing, no adjusting light etc. But somehow it just seemed to capture the magic of Henry for me. Sadly it is an old, much loved and worn, non digital photograph – so it didn’t take well to scanning and reducing in size. The original version is stunning in it’s clarity and detail. When I took it, he was sitting outside basking in the warmth of the sun, in the garden (he loved the sun on his back). he always closed his bright blue eyes in bright light (most Siamese do) – one of his nicknames was Harry blue eyes! Take a look, you can see every whisker, every individual tuft of downy soft fur on his dear little face in the photograph. I treasure it now; since now I do not have him with me in body (although always in spirit and in my heart).

Photo Friday: Black and White

Below: Digital line drawing of Henry

Below: Bonus photo

Below: Five Six stunning and beautiful back and white photography sites for you to look at and be inspired by:

• Black and White photography of London by Rob Gardiner
• Black and White Architecture by photography by Paul Politis
• Black and White New York by Dave Beckerman
• Black and White Ireland by Philip Pankov
• Black and White Portraits by Toby Deveson
• Black and White photographer, introduced to me by Blahblahblog: Ansel Adams

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Next weeks Photo Friday title is: Amazing Architecture (do join in – please leave me a link if you do!)