Greenway Noir

Every once in a while, a dame strolls out into the world with her camera set on monochrome, and, well, everything looks black and white. Or maybe gray. There's some gray, too.

The Greenway is a different world. Unrecognizable. All the cheery yellow rays of gray-headed coneflower and the lush green foliage of...everything...gone. Replaced with a moody array of black and gray, punctuated with frills of white.

The wetlands are a mottled mirror, gnarled black trees jutting out of the water to grasp at the sky with sinister intent. The once-chatty dickcissel falls silent and casts a skeptical eye upon the bipedal interloper. A rumpled song sparrow croons a desperate, lonesome melody incessantly atop its metal perch, twisting one way and another as in a heavy southern breeze.

Inches of clear, trickling water block the trail at several points, amphibious sentinels sounding their chirping alarm before abandoning their post to disappear into the waterlogged grass as I slosh past. A dark ribbon twists purposefully in the water, attempting to cross the trail. A leech.

A little fellow with comical ears pauses in chewing his dinner in the shadows for a stare before deciding I'm no threat. Red-winged blackbirds, normally ubiquitous and incessant in their noisemaking, have made themselves scarce.

It is a clinical, documentary world, everything reduced to structure and contrast. The warmth bled out with the colors. When the camera roll switches back to full color it is magical; it is like stepping into Oz.