Black and White when all is Green

It's the wet season right now in Oaxaca. This means that all the trees have the most leaves that they will have (dry season means the trees are bare but have flowers- you can't have it all so stop wishing for it, yeah?). It means all is (relatively) green at the Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca when we visited last week. The trees are fully leafed-out, the agaves and cactuses hold their color under the hot sun. The annual plants (mostly food crops but some ornamental) are lush and over-grown.

It's also really sunny though (because the rains generally come in the evening and night after the heat of the day). So there were a few clouds in the sky when we visited - enough to give any fotos with sky in them some interest. But not enough to offer that gentle, diffuse light that I hope for while taking fotos. Moreover, the tour (you must take a tour) was at 11:00 and lasted until 13:00...the middle of the day! The most bright shining light, the deepest shadows. I despaired. And decided to take at least some of my fotos with the idea that they should be black & white -- focus on patterns and light and dark, on purpose. Or something. Here's what I've come up with, using a variety of approaches to and methods of Black and White photography, post-production in Adobe Lightroom.