Labours Hands

'Labours Hands' (2011)

'His hands were his life. His livelihood earned turning wood or working stone. His hands the reflection of who he was and what he did. They were labours hands'


The power of black and white never fails to impress me. I barely considered the above image worth even editing in it's original, colour form. Yuk, too ordinary! Yet...strip away the veneer of colour and an indifferent image transforms into a powerful narrative, a story in a picture able to move or to suggest infinitely more than it's original colour cousin might ever have dreamt of!

Labours Hands belong to a man I've known many years. A craftsman and a softly spoken man of quiet pride and simple needs yet whose hands have fashioned innumerable riches. Only black and white could tell his story in one candid shot. Free of the distraction of colour the lines, cuts and abrasions are accentuated with a starkness that makes us look all the harder for it being monotone.

That's the power of black and white. The power to make us not only look but indeed to actually see!

Shirley

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