Monochrome Mondays-The Void

As the autumn chill starts settling in and layers of clothing are added to outfits.  As the leaves start falling from trees, there is a feeling of starkness. Not just darker in the sense of waking up or coming home to darkness after the long light of spring and summer. But combined with the chillier air things start feeling more barren and lonely. Not being a particular fan of winter, I don’t relish when this starts happening, but it is unavoidable…short of moving to Miami that is! I had another one of those accidental photo opportunities a week or so ago. Accidental in the sense that I don’t believe I ever tried it before, but I liked the end result.

I was walking home one night from the pub on a very quiet residential street. There was a slight slope to the street, and at the top of the slope tree branches were overhanging the sidewalk, just enough that even with my short 5’7″ frame I had to duck under them. But something made me pause. The street was illuminated by street lights, but the nearest one was behind me. In front of me was nothing but the dark, offset by branches with some leaves bare and others still clinging on. But it was the dark void beyond those branches that seemed so striking to me. The illumination of the branch and leaves stood out, but the dark was compelling to me. This weekend I was at the beach for a weekend of writing. I went to get some air one of the nights (it was really cold!) and along the boardwalk I saw another example of this into the void sensation. Again the boardwalk was lit, but just beyond the dune grass in the photo was that void again. Instead of being on a street in Queens, this time that void was headed straight out into the Atlantic Ocean. When I saw what it looked like combined with the other photo, I realized that the darkness and void of winter could be made to look beautiful as well. And I thought that maybe the void isn’t so bleak or dark after all.