I’m winding down my Musée d’Orsay coverage with a mini-series of monochrome architectural images.

Unlike my Louvre series, where I featured numerous black and white architecture, I realized this wasn’t the case for the Musée d’Orsay. I don’t have a good reason for this disparity other than to say I usually have a simple heuristic for converting a picture to monochrome. First, my street photographs are often in black and white because of tradition. I also choose black and white when it looks more dramatic than color.

I’ve displayed the ceiling of this museum several times during this series, but all in color. It was the logical choice with its impressive golden look. However, I liked the mood and mystery of this closeup, where you can see some of the details but not all. It’s all about the texture and shapes.

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