Heart & Soul.

Following-on from yesterday’s article on the nature of genius, ‘combine all the things you are doing’…  put your ‘heart and soul into things’: these are just the two sayings which have resonated with me since then.

Above is a image I took during a walking trip to Castlerock in Northern Ireland.

This is the facade of the building and complex which housed, among other things a drawing room and library etc. Downhill House, housed almost everything one would like to have within it’s walls during its’ use.

But, that is not the reason I like this image. I like this image because it have a very well defined structure, consolidated in the building’s facade, and the contrast and tones of the picture as a whole. This image was taken, as stated at Downhill house in Castlerock, but, the image was made in PhotoShop simply by taking out the colour from the image I produced this image in it’s place, little else was changed or altered.

The image has a imposing character to it, which I like. Composed or consisting of the building itself. There is a majestic quality also in the way the image was taken using the sky and sea as a backdrop. But, most of all I do like the fact that it is in black and white, a style echoing the historical nature of the subject matter the image consists of.

I have tried to have lead-in lines and the image is certainly read from left to right, like a page in a book. The image also raises a number of questions too. It even has a haunted feel to it, i believe.

I know from my experience there, making the photograph used in this image, that people were around and also that it was a lovely bright and sunny day, with sheep in the fields etc.

Nothing can take away from that. To me a photograph or image in general is lifeless, if it tries to ‘stand-alone’, on it’s own as such; removed from reality and the experience of the whole scene, from which it was taken. This image should not become one of those images.

Castlerock is a beautiful place. It’s really photogenic.

I loved this image also because as I created it for black&white it reminds me of the whole experience also, of taking and producing photographs in the dark-room in college, which was unforgettable and fun.