This shimmering alcove is the work of an outstanding interior designer of the 20thC - ALBERT HADLEY. Though the space is small and dark it's not claustrophobic because it radiates an abundance of light in its reflective surfaces. The silver leaf ceiling gives the low illumination a chance to magnify itself. Albert Hadley was a master at playing off the drama of a room because he knew how to combine color, form, and light in exactly the right proportions.

When we give our walls or floors a very daring, very dark coat of high gloss paint it reflects back the light and shadows. This dazzling show changes throughout the day. In this photo of an interior by Miles Redd, the high gloss wall is skillfully given a back seat when mirrors and artwork are placed on top. Thus diminishing our sense of its glare and reflection.

the basics ~ Black+White 

b+w photographs possess the power of image in a way that color photos can't. 

Toko Shinoda at 100 years old had this to say about her long love affair of painting with sumi (made from the charcoal soot from burnt pinewood),

“Sumi is not a medium that expresses things directly. If the sky is blue then the simplest most straightforward, most understandable way of depicting it should be with blue paint. But even if you use blue paint to depict the blue of the sky, you still can't capture its blue-ness. You can't do that with paint but you may be able to do it with sumi. Just because it is not blue...People think of sumi as only a single color - black. But it contains an infinite number of hues. Countless gradations. That's why I never get bored with sumi. I get bored when I use ordinary red paint. It is what it is. It has limitations. But sumi is limitless. It will be different today compared to yesterday even if you use the same ink. All sorts of things can change sumi. - the temperature and humidity - even your mindset. Nothing is predetermined. So I never get bored with it.”

As we might already know, when photography was in it’s infancy 100+ years ago, color was not an option. Therefore, we were left with our imaginations to fill the photo with color by simply looking at tones of B+W with it’s range of grays. To diffuse this light or intensify it, photographers set up white sheets or silver reflectors.

An early photographer of gardens in the United States, Frances Benjamin Johnston indulged both her love of color and her feeling for the interpretation of color in the gardens she photographed.

“She studied the character of a garden as she would that of a person sitting for a portrait. She goes over and over the paths watching the garden under various aspects of dawn or noon-day, morning or evening light, until she becomes aware of the personality of that garden. Therefore her work becomes in fact a portrait, not a mechanical exposure. Garden photographs she feels should be viewed almost from a direct opposite standpoint from that of conventional photography. For the object of garden photographers should be to attain the feeling and to convey the sense of color…."

~NY Botanical Garden Groundbreakers exhibit

Reading one of Nathalie Nahai’s books on website branding psychology, she had this to say about B+W photography vs. color: 

what do backslashes, feature walls and Japanese Kimono have in common?

The salmon was supposed to be a feature wall but at the last minute I chickened out thinking it would be too overwhelming. So where to put the extra paint? Inside the cabinets. For 200 years Japanese merchants had to hide their wealth so they put all the color and decorative elements inside - on the lining of their kimono. 

apartment lobbies   
hotel lobbies

kitchens sinks
bathrooms
table cloths

The slate sink was found in an old mill in Rohode Island. "It was used to wash poultry or something," says Standefer. It also made an appearance in the film Addicted to Love.

exterior color

DENMARK is a place where people seem adapt at playing cords of happy color against the more somber. Does this help lift their spirits? Are they making the most of a scant few hours of grey daylight during their interminably long winter months? 

Open Air Museum - Frilandsmuseet Copenhagen

whether traditional or cutting edge modern, color never fails to impress.

Luis Barragan - one of the greatest architects of the 20th C lived and worked in Mexico. Before designing his structures he would sleep on the building site to familiarize himself with the sun’s movements so he could integrate this information into his drawings. Is that how he came to bathe them in just the right colors/light?