It is not time for mirth and laughter, the cold, gray dawn of the morning after.
George Ade
when the idea for this post first came to mind, i initially thought it would not make too much sense. after all, i took the trouble of getting up at an ungodly hour, walking around my neighborhood without a shower and a shave, and taking pictures while bleary-eyed because dawn is the golden hour: a magical time when the light just perfect.
and so rendering my dawn pics a wonderful shade of monochrome felt counterintuitive and a waste of good light.
i have since posted a couple of my colored dawn pics in my blog and in flickr, and thought no more of it.
then a couple of days back, i came across an excellent post in lightstalking (here, if you're keen to read it) and thought that was nothing short of inspiring. the lightstalking post had excellent pictures of landscapes in black and white and now that i think about it, maybe it's not good for my self-confidence posting the link to these here.
anyhow, ego and confidence be damned: i fired up lightroom and fiddled around with my pics. some of these i have posted before, but in full color. of course, i did not let that stop me. i have gone through those pics again, and put them through their monochrome paces.
It was a curious experience: there were pictures that seemed vibrant in color, and just okay in monochrome and there were pics that looked awesome in monochrome but were meh in color.
but all the pics, i thought, showed an excellent play between light and dark, which reminded of how a long time ago, i came across a big word that had me excited: chiaroscuro. when i read it then, i took a mental note and told myself, one of these days i will do something chiaroscuro-ish.
so after seeing the pictures, i rooted around in my mental basement, took out the note, and smiled knowingly: yeah all these are chiaroscuro-ish, indeed.
and so here are a few of my dawn pics, monochromized (i coined that just now), chiaroscuro-ed (that too), dawn and all that magical, golden, soft light, rendered in beautiful shades of gray.
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