After trying to be profound yesterday about the sparing use of color, I came across this image of the Dutch Tulip harvest in Alkmaar, The Netherlands from Hollandluchfoto/Getty Images.  I have to conclude that this image would just not make it as a black and white!

I’ve spoken a fair bit about the misplaced dichotomy of science and art and about the intrinsic artful beauty in many subjects scientific.  This past week, I came across some beautiful soft X ray images by Arie van’t Riet.  These he refers to as “bioramas” and they are exciting because Dr. Van Riet has totally crossed the line.  These are studio images taken with X-rays and then partially colorized in Adobe Photoshop.  The transition is seamless and the colors appear as if they were always meant to be.

The artist by the way emphasizes that these are things dead, not alive.  No animals were sacrificed in the production of these images.  So we can begin with his image of the “John Dory Fish,” which has very little color but is an excellent example of the delicacy of form that X rays reveal.  You do not need to be a taxonomist to appreciate the structural beauty here.  But then van’t Riet combines the X ray images with color.  A good example is his his photograph of tulips growing out of the ground.  The colors have no significance.  But they appeal to the eye and enhance the beauty.

Color is an fascinating dimension in photography.  In mundane photography it can be a crutch, by which I mean that if if you have dramatic color, you can often fool yourself into thinking that you don’t need anything else to recommend your picture. I prefer to take images in black and white, or more accurately to convert to black and white, to emphasize form and dynamic range.  But sometimes the image screams out for color.

The really interesting balance, to my mind’s eye, lies in starting with a great black and white image and making the pictorial  decision between a pure black and white image vs. a toned one.  And if toned: cold or warm.  And if toned: exactly how much.  So in the same context, I think that we can appreciate Arie van’t Riet’s photographs in his decision process of exactly how much color to apply.  I think that some of his images are dazzling and dazzling because he uses color so sparingly.

Well, there are definitely signs of impending spring, even here in the Northeast. For the last few days on social media my Japanese friends have been furiously posting glorious images from Tokyo of the cherry blossoms.  And frankly, I want to be there! Washington, DC is predicting, depending upon whom you listen to, cherry blossoms peaking next week or the week after.

So for today, I thought that Hati and Skoll would just pause and offer up for peaceful contemplation this beautiful picture by Toru Hanai for Reuters of Tokyo in full bloom.  Be sure to notice the little bird sitting on a branch in the picture.  Doesn’t this image just make you ever so peaceful and happy?

Well, April Fools’ Day and I suppose that I have to pick up on the theme that I started on Sunday – of great hoaxes.  My favorites are images of great dictators and the people that they have airbrushed out of the photograph.  And there are a lot of those! But I always find these more and a little gruesome.  Afterall the people in question were usually “airbrushed” out of living as well – so a story more fitting for Halloween than April Fools’ Day.

So how about a photograph taken by Luke MacGregor for Reuters on June 7, 2010 showing an employee of Christie’s Auction house in London looking at a late eighteenth century hoax that was meant to be the mummified skeleton of a mermaid.  She was part monkey, part fish and part papier-mache. Ariel she’s not!

In follow up to my discussion of a few days back about photographing horse, yesterday I came upon this absolutely wonderful image by Walter Bieri for the EPA  showing circus artist Maycol Errani standing astride two horses.  He was in dress rehearsal for a new by the Swiss national Circus Knie in Rapperswil, Switzerland, on March 27.

A vouple of points about this photograph.  Again there is eye contact with the horse and the photographer is engaged with them.  Second the perspective creates tremendous interest making the horse huge and, of course, creating the tension as to whether the horses or the rider are the true subject.  And finally the dramatic back-lighting to me creates another worldliness.  The horse don’t seem to be normal horses.  They appear way too wooly, perhaps like something out of the Pleistocene.

Hmm! Tuesday is April Fools’ Day and in honor of that I was looking through some of the greatest photographic hoaxes of all time.  As it turns out we’ve actually spoken about more than a few of them, classics being Oprah Winfrey’s head transposed on Ann Margaret’s body and Abraham Lincoln’s head onto John Calhoun’s body.  It struck me in the end that there was none better than one shown in an April Fools’ Day 1957 edition of the BBC program “Panorama” purporting to be a woman harvesting spaghetti in Ticino, Switzerland.  It’s just ridiculous! Everybody knows that spaghetti really comes from Italy!

I was flipping through the latest round of “pictures of the month” and came across something that you don’t see everyday from Caters News.  It is a picture by Australian photographer Bobby-Jo Clow, who works as an elephant keeper at a Tanzanian zoo, and shows a cheetah poking its head through the sunroof of a safari vehicle and sniffing the head of a guide in the Tanzanian Serengeti National Park. “Got any gazelles in here?”

Hmm!  We are told that everyone remained calm as the cheetah dangled its paws in front of their faces and sniffed at their hair.  Yikes! I am not sure that I would have remained calm.  Question 1, aren’t you supposed to keep the sun roof closed on safari?  Question 2, was the guide’s hair still dark the next morning?

In 1968 photographer Bill Cunningham, who died last year at the age of 101, began an eight year project photographing the great architectural facades of New York City.  The catch in Mr. Cunningham’s photoseries was that he posed models in front of the building who were dressed in the period clothing of the year that the building or structure was constructed.  The result is a fascinating combination of historical context, apparent anachronism, and often poignant commentary.

I think that one of my favorite images is that of model Editta Sherman riding the subway for a photoshoot at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in 1972 dressed in a Victorian period costume.  Ms. Sherman is the picture of an imagine dainty time.  She sits among the dirt and graffiti of modern New York – and we are left to imagine what has changed, what has been lost, and yes, even what has been gained.

There is a exhibitr of these works on exhibition of the Museum of the New York Historical Society that contains many images from the project not seen before.  And I should also comment that the NYHS is a treasure trove of historical images that document that history and vitality of New York City.  The exhibition is on display now through June 15^th.