Corinna was a quick soul sister for me. We met four years ago at a photography retreat, and I’m not quite sure what took the Universe so long to bring us together. Corinna has a beautiful eye, a sharp wit, and a talent for stringing words together to tell a story. I wondered what she was capturing this summer and here’s what she has to share with us…

I am a sucker for the Technicolor world in the hills outside my Colorado home. The barren white and gray of winter gives way, by turns, to the tender greens of spring, summer’s riot of red, yellow and purple wildflowers, and everything baked gold in the fall. I often have my camera with me when I wander in that landscape because training it on the details of the Rockies seems like as good an exercise in gratitude as I know how to perform.

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Usually I upload those photos to my laptop and they sit there, unprocessed and unprinted. It’s as though the act of slowing down to notice, frame, and click completes the arc. I dismiss any further notion with the question that plagues my entire photography practice: what does it do? (This is a question that deserves exploration in its own blog post, and possibly with the help of a trained psychotherapist.) It’s a picture of a flower or a leaf or a rock. So what? So it stays on my hard drive, I guess.

BW Textures_CRobbins-2On a recent hike though, I found myself drawn to the tapestry of textures along the trail. When I uploaded to my hard drive a counterintuitive (for me) instinct arose: what if I process them in black and white? I am so taken with the colors on the trail that the idea of doing away with them in order to honor the line, light, and texture struck me like a thunderbolt.

BW Textures_CRobbins-3I know this is exactly the opposite of an innovative idea. But it offered me a way forward with these images beyond uploading and reformatting the CF card that initially held them. It allowed me to see past my first instinctive reaction to these spots on the trail and appreciate their beauty more deeply. And it reminded me to try new things – even counterintuitive things – when I process because the obvious way may not be the most true way.

BW Textures_CRobbinsDo you ever surprise yourself when you process your images? What have you discovered?

Corinna collects people, stories, and moments wherever she goes. Her camera and porous point pens are her favorite tools. She loves Instagram (@birdwannawhistle) and makes it to her blog as often as possible.

Meghan of Life Refocused