This month’s challenge is “patterns.”

This month’s challenge is “patterns.”

More b&w here.

If only
I could hold my daughters
in the palms of my hands
both of them curled up
in a woven bed of soft grass and
strands of my hair
and I could keep them
forever

I’ve spent the entire day thinking it was Thursday. And I swear, I haven’t taken any of that prescription pain medication in almost a week! I think it may have re-wired the calendar in my brain though, because my days are messed up. But somewhere deep in the recesses of my gray matter, I must have realized it was Tuesday, because I spent some time this afternoon working on a black and white self portrait. Of course, I was planning on posting it next week, and this month’s theme hasn’t officially ended yet, but let’s cut an obviously brain damaged woman some slack here, okay people?

This month’s theme is black and white, which gives me the happy shivers all over because I absolutely love black and white photography. It has the potential for being so powerful, for commanding attention and focus. Without a bunch of different distracting colors, the subject matter can really stand out and make you pay attention. Another reason I love black and white? I am wearing zero make-up in this shot, and I somehow end up looking quite normal. If this were in color, I would look so pale and frightening you would think I just crawled out of some dark hole somewhere. Behold:

There was some editing involved. I cropped it, changed it to black and white using Microsoft Digital Image Suite and added a grainy “diffuse glow” to soften up the light. I really like how it turned out, so if you do think I look like I just crawled out of a dark hole, please keep yer dang mouth shut.

This month’s theme is black and white. See more here.