I went looking for good quotes about kaleidoscopes but instead found myself drawn to ones about multiple colours. Maybe that’s the same thing? And how many colours can you pack into one photo? That’s the challenge I set myself ...
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A brief extract from one of my favourite poems by one of my favourite poets to introduce a gallery of burgundy-red images. Of course this colour takes its name from a red wine, the French Burgundy, but we might just as well use the name of any other red wine to describe it. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, the French themselves tend to instead call the colour Bordeaux!
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On my first afternoon in Riga, as I sat with a coffee in the Livu Laukums, my eye was naturally drawn to the large bright yellow snail in one corner. Later that day I spotted a green one in the Ratslaukums and I was to come across several more during the course of my stay. What is more, these snails were on the move; slowly (as is normal for snails) they made their way around the city, each day a little further from their original starting place.
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It is hard not to look at blue and feel calmer. Blue is cool and relaxing. Pale blue is tranquil, peaceful; while dark blue suggests strength and power. Blue also indicates intelligence and responsibility, which is perhaps why it is the most popular colour for business logos.
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We all know pink as the colour of romance, and most of us think of it as girly. It is also considered calming; paler shades of pink are sometimes used in prisons to calm inmates. And apparently sports teams have been known to paint the opposition changing room pink to make their players passive and less energetic.
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The sun bathes us in natural light, even when covered by cloud. But for part of each day it is hidden from our sight, lighting the other side of the world. Our ancient ancestors learned to make fires, to keep the threats that darkness held at bay (as well, of course, to keep themselves warm). Since then mankind has developed all sorts of artificial ways to mimic the light of the sun when it disappears at night.
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According to Alice Walker, 'it annoys God if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.' Purple is my favourite colour so there is little risk of my annoying God in that manner at least!
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The fashion editor Diana Vreeland once said, ‘Pink is the navy blue of India’ and in Rajasthan I certainly saw why she would say that. Everywhere we went the women were dressed in the most gorgeous shades of that colour. Among all the wonderful colours that I remember from our time there, it is pink – a shocking pink – that stands out.
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The colour yellow seems to divide opinion. Van Gogh loved it, but another artist, Degas, described it as ‘a horrible thing’. In colour psychology it is regarded as the colour of the mind and the intellect. It is optimistic and cheerful. However it can also suggest impatience, criticism and cowardice.
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Who says photographs have to be faithful representations? Sometimes it’s fun to play around with images to create something that’s quite wildly different from the original subject matter.
