This week, Patti has selected a theme that focuses on monochrome photography. As a child of the 1960s, I was always enamored with color photography as it was newer and “modern”, but I’ve come to realize that I love the feel and drama of monochrome images. Patti includes reflections and shadows as options for the images featured. She writes, “This week, we’re challenging you to show us photos with reflections and/or shadows captured or processed in monochrome. Use your favorite post-processing software like Photoshop or Lightroom. Feel free to process your image in different shades of blue, green, brown, or gray. You can also shoot your image in a setting that’s predominantly one color–like a blue sea and sky, for example.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

My opening image features Mount Ranier as seen in Reflections Lake. There are two lakes almost side-by-side that sit right by the edge of the highway that runs through the park. There are lots of parking spaces nearby, but the attraction is strong and they are often fairly full, especially in peak season. Luckily both lakes are just a short walk from any of the spaces, so you don’t have to park twice to check out the best reflections from either lake.

On a recent cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines, the featured show is about a group of men who frequent a British Public House (Pub). Before the show started, I captured a cell phone image of the set. I used my Samsung S-20U to capture the image, then used Lightroom and Silver Efex-3 to do the conversion.

Just a week ago, we docked in Saint Thomas on the Norwegian Escape. It was our third visit to this U.S. Virgin Island. Normally this blue hour shot would have been left in color, but I decided for this challenge to do a black-and-white conversion. It came out better than I expected.

The next morning, we docked at Tortola. It was our first trip to this island. We had a great tour of the island with a tour guide who was not only informative but entertaining. Talented guides are not always easy to find. The reflections of the lights on the boats in the water created some interesting light patterns in the pre-dawn morning.

I often break the “rule” of not shooting into the light, because of the silhouette effect from back-lit images. I’ve shared this image before, and it was almost black-and-white even before I processed it. I added just a touch of sepia from Silver Efex-2. This image was captured in Mazatlan, Mexico on our first trip to visit the city on the occasion of our son’s wedding in 2006.

Silver Efex-2 helped me create this monochrome view of Alaska’s inner passage on a dramatic day. Captured from the Norwegian Pearl cruise ship, the clouds were just starting to break leaving streams of sunlight to highlight the ocean.

This silhouette in black-and-white misses the golden hues of the sky in the color version, but it more clearly defines the lighthouse on the shore. This black-and-white version is one of my all-time favorites. You can view all of the images in the gallery in HD on my Flickr site here.

I really enjoyed Patti’s challenge this week as it allowed me to share some brand new images captured in 2023 as well as some old favorites that I know I have shared in previous challenges over the years. Stay tuned for Amy’s challenge next week. If you’ve wondered about how to join in our challenges, click here.

John Steiner

This week it’s Jez Braithwaite’s turn to guest host the July “Guest Fest”. I’ve been following Jez for some time and he introduced me to Lensy, his crystal lens ball. It led me to go out and get my own “Lensy.” For the challenge this week, Jez writes, “Now it’s your turn to share your photos. They can be any reflections you come across; landscapes, cityscapes or chance ones in a puddle. I look forward to seeing all your entries!” You can read his entire challenge post here.

For my challenge, I didn’t limit my images to reflections. In addition, I included images that could appear to be reflections like the pelicans in the image above. At La Jolla Cove in California, I saw these two pelicans in so similar a pose that one could mistake the “reflection” as a mirror of the original.

In Washington state, two bridges not exactly doubles of each other cross the Klickitat River just before it enters the Columbia River. The upper bridge is on SR 14, the Lewis and Clark Highway. The lower bridge is a railroad bridge.

While I am in Washington state, I include my favorite reflection, in Reflection Lake, Mount Rainier peeks through the evergreen forest at Mount Rainier National Park.

At the annual Albuquerque Balloon Festival in New Mexico, there are many look-alike hot air balloons. This pair of balloons are obviously twins, but they are fraternal. You can tell because of the eyes. One is obviously female. >grin<

Here’s a reflection of skillful piloting. Two members of the premier USAF demonstration team flying close together in a mirror formation.

At sunset, these two bull elk aren’t quite a reflection of one another. The antler rack on the right elk is indicative of a more mature animal.

I couldn’t pass up the chance to share another view of the beautiful Red River of the North as it meanders through Fargo-Moorhead at Lindenwood Park. The breeze that afternoon put enough ripples in the water to give the reflection a dreamy out-of-focus effect.

Of course, I can’t leave out cruising. These two majestic cruise ships were at the dock awaiting the return of guests from their journies on the island of Grand Turk in the Caribbean. We were on the Carnival Magic for this cruise. If all goes as planned, we will again be on the Magic in September as it sails out of New York for an autumn tour of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada.

If you like to pixel peep at the images or metadata, click on any of the images to view them in HD on my Flickr site, or you can visit the entire gallery here.

Thanks to Jez for his “seeing double” challenge and for volunteering to host this week. In the next three weeks, we will be challenged by Andre of My Blog-Solaner, Tracy at Reflections of an Untidy Mind, and Sarah of Travel with Me. The Lens-Artists team will be back in force in August.

Please join us in our weekly photo challenge. It’s easy to do. Click here to find out how.

John Steiner