What if Our Most Colorful Landscapes Were Gray, Instead?

Can you imagine a world void of color? I can’t!

I am a landscape/nature photographer, and the color of naturally occurring scenes at home and on my travels plays a huge role in what I photograph.

I crave color! I need color!

Are you familiar with the children’s story, Frederick, by Leo Lioni (1967)? In the story, a field mouse named Fredrick is accused by his fellow mice of not working to prepare for winter. He’s not gathering food nor readying the nest.

When his friends ask him about all the sitting around he does, his reply is brilliant!

Fredrick replies that he is busy — he is gathering colors so he can fill their long, gray winter days with visions of color! Sometimes, I feel like Fredrick.

I gather my photographs filled with colors — the turquoise green blues of the Carribean, the vibrant yellows and oranges of the forest in fall, the verdant mosses that respond in color after a rain, the cobalt blue of the mid-western sky, and even the browns of fungi hidden in the leaves.

Part of my photographic interest lies in preserving these colors for future gazing — especially on a gray skied winter day in the Northern reaches of the Midwestern United States.

While contemplating what to write for the Globetrotter’s November Challenge on Gray, I thought I’d take some of my favorite colorful travel scenes from the last year and put a black and white filter on them.

Carribean & Hawaii

Magens Bay Beach, on the island of St. Thomas in the USVI, was once named one of the most beautiful beaches in the world by National Geographic Magazine. You certainly wouldn’t make that claim using this photograph. In reality, the beach is more vibrant, alive, and pristine. In short, it is more colorful!

The colors of the Hawaiian islands always attract. This scene from Maui looks like it might have been taken years ago, before color film! In grayscale, it gives off a nostalgic vibe but was really taken in January 2022, and is full of all the color you can imagine!

Part of what attracts me to places and organisms in nature is their color or color contrasts. Without that, with only gray tones, life is boring and nondescript.

When we know what a color is based on an object like this butterfly, in our mind’s eye we might even still see the orange, white, and black when we look at the photograph, and know it’s a Monarch from its markings and the expected coloration.

But what about the hydrangea bloom? Does your mind tell you what color that is? Probably not!

What if I told you the stem of this fungi I saw in Maine last fall was lavender? It probably is not what you would have guessed or imagined! You have no hint of color from the photograph, do you?!

Don’t get me wrong…I like the color gray.

However, it’s rare when I have converted photos to monochrome. Rare — but, I’ve done it. This got me thinking about when I’ve converted a photo to grayscale. I looked through my archives.

In 2003, I took photos of the American Queen at Riverside Park in La Crosse WI. I did convert two photos to black and white because they made the boats look “more old fashioned.”

The next year, I took a monochrome photo of one of the iron bridges in our town, left over from horse and buggy days.

But those are it — We had family photos taken in 2014 and some of those are black and white. And each of my boys’ high school graduation photos had some taken in black and white — Strangely enough, those are amongst my favorites for each son.

But without color or contrast, the photography lacks interest for me. I am drawn to the vibrancy of color and what each color contrasts with.

Even when just a little color is added back, such as this photo of Schevenigan Beach in Den Haag, it helps envision what exists in reality.

I’m thankful for the role color plays in my life and how it lends itself to my creative process. Likewise, I’m grateful to the Globetrotters for providing this Gray Challenge for the month of November, as it gave me an opportunity to examine color in my photographs.

If you want to see more monochromatic-themed articles, check out some of the other participants in this month’s challenge.

Rhonda Carrier writes about visiting a special gravesite in Penang on All Souls Day.

I avoided the gray castles, churches, temples, and fortresses of Europe, even though I was just there. Jillian Amatt covers these well in her “gray” post.