b&w stories: grandma (part five)

"November 1920 I voted in the presidential election.  It was the first time women could vote.  Warren Harding was elected president.

I will always remember the day in April 1917 when World War I started."

And at 18 years old, she had no clue that she would send a son off to World War II . . .

b&w stories: grandma (part four)

"When i was fourteen I learned to drive.  There were no starters on cars then, so I had to crank by hand.  Steering wheels were on the right hand side and no license was required.

I remember the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic in 1912."

b&w stories: grandma (part three)

 "I started to school in 1906.  There was a one room brick school house near us with one teacher for eight grades, but my dad did not want me to go there, so I went into town on the streetcar to the Baxter school for the first grade.  By the next fall a new school had been built with two rooms and two teachers, so I went there through the eighth grade then back to town for high school."

b&w stories: grandma (part two)

"I had a sister and brother older, Elizabeth and John.  Two years later on New Year's Eve Harry was born.

In a few months, i think i was about two and a half, my mother gave me away to an aunt, my father's sister that did not have any children of her own so I was raised as an only child.  I was never adopted.  My father would not permit it and I had to go back and stay with my family for two weeks every year.

My aunt, or Mama as I soon started calling her, took me on a train to her home in Ohio where she lived on an oil lease.  I remember all those tall derricks around the house.

When I was about four, we moved jut across the state line to Richmond, Indiana where I lived till I came to St. Petersburg, Florida in 1944."

b&w stories: grandma (part one)

i always thought my grandmother (on the right) looked so elegant in this photo though the young woman i saw there never quite gelled in my child's mind with the grandmother i knew.  the solitary woman who crocheted afghans and pieced crazy quilts ceaselessly, sewed me clothes and made me canned cinnamon rolls when i stayed over occasionally, baked peanut butter cookies on holidays, kept orange slices and jelly nougat in her candy dishes, and brought curried fruit and banana salad to family functions.

while going through some of her things last year i found these notes she had written.  i guess she intended to write her life story and only got three pages in.  these three small pages, however, are packed with the life she lived before children and they match that young woman in the photo perfectly . . .

morning magic: in black and white

it's a really neat exercise to convert a set of photos to black and white.  it's so interesting to choose which ones i think will work in that format and then to see which actually do.  it's also fascinating the way black and white changes what is seen and how it's perceived.  so cool.  you should definitely give it a try sometime.

i would love to hear which of these capture your attention and speak to you the most.  :)

a sunday morning walk in black and white

these are a few of my wildflower photos from sunday converted to black and white.  i think i will never grow tired of thistle and queen anne's lace now.  good thing it blooms all summer long.

the b&w photography project: ice day 2015

these go along with my ice photos from earlier in the week.  as i was editing them, i checked to see which would look nice in black and white.  when i came across a photo that looked equally well in color and in black and white, i went back and looked for a similar one to use as the black and white.  this worked well as my first run through my photos i was noticing the lighting that works well in color photography and often a shot with less brilliant lighting will have more contrast to work nicely in black and white.  i'm enjoying learning more about black and white photography through trial and error.

 

joining in with the b&w photography project on podcast.