This is one of my favourite photos of my little girl when she was less than a year old. She and the two-year-old aboriginal girl were playing together on a flooded road in Darwin’s outskirts. Forever after we’ve always called this photo “chocolate and vanilla.” I believe it was the indigenous girl’s foster mum who came up with the title, followed by an infectious giggle. Ah, the wonderful memories we have of that family …
Black and white look so great together, like they belong next to one another. Such a contrast. The white shows just how dark the dark is, and in the same way, the dark shows just how bright the white is. Polar opposites and yet somehow tied together.
One of my favourite “black and white” occurences is in piano keys. I think of that song Ebony and Ivory. The keys can play music in perfect harmony, the black and white together. Yet, in society we have good and bad and don’t always seem to be able to get along. Good and bad, wrong and right — another way black and white is used — dark being evil and white being good, in an ever-clashing battle for supremacy.
Then, of course, there is the black and white of print on paper. Once again, the two in perfect harmony, can take us to other worlds, and magical happenings beyond our imaginations. Or they can take us on a journey of self-discovery and change. The scope is as endless as the two are separate in the colour spectrum.
We can learn a lot, it seems, from black and white. Do you have a favourite black and white picture or story?
Romancing The Rock 