One Last Drink - A Final Bough
(Pressmennan Lake and Wood,
East Lothian)
Monochrome
This category is a slight departure for my Portfolio pages, in the sense that Monochrome - or Black & White - doesn’t define a particular type of subject. Any digital image can be given the Monochrome treatment in post-production, and indeed I rarely set out with this outcome in mind. Yet certain scenes or moods definitely lend themselves to it, such as those with low contrast or small dynamic range. Or compositions which cry out for an atmospheric, olde worlde feel.
With photography often being seen as a ‘true-to-life’ artform, it’s curious that Monochrome represents the one form of impactful post-processing which is widely accepted without question. This is probably because it harks back to the sepia-tinged origins of the art. But for those with an artful bent, this is a ‘grey’ area to be exploited… indeed, as demonstrated below, my own definition of ‘Monochrome’ is not always entirely ‘Black & White’! ;-)
Weeping into the Drink
(Pressmennan Lake and Wood,
East Lothian)
(St. Michael's Chapel and Hermitage, Roche Rock)
(Killerton Park, Devon)
(Killerton Wood, Devon)
(Passing Flock, Killerton Hill)
(Knightshayes Court, Devon)
(Rentonhall Farm, East Lothian)
(Canadian Flora; Gaspé, Quebec)
(Tantallon Castle from Seacliff Harbour, East Lothian)
(Kildonan Foreshore, Arran)
(Sea Fog, Pladda)
(Ailsa Craig from Arran)
(Kynance Cove, Cornwall)
(Trewavas Mine, Cornwall)
(Kynance Cove, Cornwall)
(Eas Mòr Wood, Arran)
(St. Michael's Driftwood, Cornwall)
(Western Highlands)
(The Silver Walk, Loch Moidart)
(Loch Moidart)
(Overlooking Glen Moidart)
(Glen Rosa, Isle of Arran)
(Kildonan Awakes - Arran's Southern Shore)
(Legends of Dartmoor)
(Ancient Arran)
The Dungeon
(Tantallon Castle, East Lothian)
Postscript (from Postbridge) - The Ballad of Bellever Tor
For this brief postscript, I’d like to explain the above “Free-Fallin’ Phantom” legend of Dartmoor in a bit more detail, while closing this page on the note of Gothic spookiness with which it opened!
Back in 2021, I resurrected and extended a homespun ballad about Bellever Tor, an evocative jumble of rocks slap-bang in the middle of Dartmoor - an area foreboding enough to have spawned The Hound of the Baskervilles, and so much else besides. Bellever’s relative proximity to Dartmoor Prison, at Princetown, had given me an idea for a narrative. As this unfolded, it became part ‘wordplay exercise’, part ‘archetypal myth’ (or at least, a modern tongue-in-cheek version of one).
To top it all off, I re-visited the tor itself and attempted to capture an image which might illustrate the ballad. The resulting picture - or a particular rendering of it - became the backdrop to the plate below.
This plate also features in my 2021 Gallery, with the full story outlined in my Dartmoor-themed blog, The Ballad of Bellever Tor. I must therefore apologise for the repetition! However, I couldn’t wrap up the current Moody Monochrome section without referencing this self-penned ‘picture-poem’… although not entirely serious, it hopefully makes for a suitably brooding conclusion! :-0
Return to Portfolio Main Page