We love seeing different locations around the world and their images are definitely framed in our minds. However, as we were growing up, we used to see images of famous locations and not all of them were taken in color. Does seeing a landmark like the Eiffel Tower in black and white take away from the beauty or sense of awe? We have shared some of our favorite landmark photographs previously, but here we take the same images and are sharing them in both color as well as black and white. When you look through the images, does your opinion change of the landmark based on whether it is in color or not?
Mount RushmoreMount Rushmore in Black and WhiteBig BenBig Ben in Black and WhiteThe Great Sphynx The Great Sphynx in Black and WhiteWashington MonumentWashington Monument in Black and WhiteLeaning Tower of Pisa Leaning Tower of Pisa in Black and WhiteEiffel Tower in AutumnEiffel Tower in Black and White
In almost every historic city that you visit, there will be an old town area where the buildings have been preserved. There is often another part of the city that is new and modern and they are usually in different parts of the city so that the traffic associated to tourists and that of the businesses can be kept separate from one another. Every now and then, though, you will find a historic building right in the middle of the modern skyscrapers. It is often a church, but not always as it could just be a historic landmark. The juxtaposition of the two can sometimes be visually interesting.
Church in Chicago with a Skyscraper Rising next to the Bell TowerOld and New Side-by-Side in Cologne, GermanyModern Paris as Seen from the Eiffel TowerNew Artistic Awnings in Old Cairo
We have seen several examples throughout our travels, especially in Germany where so much of the cities were rebuilt after WWII, but it certainly isn’t limited to European cities. We have seen many interesting examples here in the United States, especially in Chicago, which is a city with a rich history of its own. We find the contrasts to be so striking that we often pause to take a variety of photographs to capture the differences and similarities between the old and the new.
Another Bell Tower and Skyscraper Image, but in DenverNew and Old in FrankfurtApparently We Really Like Building Towers Transitioning to SkyscrapersGothic Church and Glass Tower
Whenever you are traveling, one of the things that you can rarely control is what lighting you will have for your photography. Whether it is the lighting inside of building that was never meant to have electrical lighting or the direction of the sun from where you are viewing an area. Obviously, we all try to take advantage of good lighting when it exists and minimize the impact of poor lighting when we can’t control it. We rarely have the time during a trip to try and plan to visit a place when the lighting is at its best, so we fall into the camp of people who take pictures of their trips versus trying to create the perfect photograph. That doesn’t mean that using the “point and click” approach doesn’t sometimes produce wonderful photographs and it is also why we take so many pictures during a trip in the hopes that a percentage of them turn out the way we wanted them to.
Eiffel Tower from the Seine Fountain Lights in Piazza Navona in RomeLights on the Streets of ViennaLight and Shadows in Cochabamba, Bolivia Inadvertently Capturing Our Shadow in IcelandShadows Across a Trail in Colorado
