Tiles in Time
Blog Entry – May 5, 2025
Saturday, I went to a monochrome photography exhibition. It wasn’t a big event—just a small, quiet space—but the images stayed with me. There’s something about black and white photography that strips things down to their essence. You notice details you might have overlooked—light, texture, the mood of a place.
On the drive home, I found myself thinking about stillness, and how some photographs capture more than just what’s in front of the lens. When I got back, I started scrolling through my photo library, curious to see what I might have missed in my own work. That’s when I came across this image from Victoria, taken last year. I’ve edited it before, but I never converted it to black and white—until now.
And it feels completely different.
In color, this image was quiet, but almost too gentle—warm, even. But in black and white, it holds weight. The light falls more sharply, the contrast brings out the wear in the tiles, and the shadows stretch a little longer. It feels more distant now, more haunted. Like a memory rather than a moment. The color was documenting; this version is remembering.
That feeling stayed with me, and I ended up writing this:
Tiles in Time
The tiles remember—though no one believes,
How footsteps still fall in the hush of the eaves.
Worn edges whisper of lives long erased,
Of hurried goodbyes and dreams misplaced.
The staircase sighs with the weight of the past,
Each creak a reminder that nothing can last.
Dust settles deep like the hush of a prayer,
And cold drafts speak of a presence still there.
Light filters in with a reluctant grace,
Touching the floor like it’s searching a face.
Time does not move here—it coils and waits,
Behind every shadow, behind every gate.
A slip of a voice, a flicker of lace,
A figure once known, now lost without trace.
You walk through the silence, feel chills in your spine,
As the past walks beside you, step by step, line by line.
It’s strange how a photograph can feel different with time—or with just one change in how you see it. This one wasn’t finished until I took the color away.
