Round blue ceramic roof tile with a dragon image
Colour,  Sunday Stills,  Themed galleries

Gallery: feeling the blues, again

December 16, 2022 / 39 Comments

Blue

Songs are like tattoos

You know I’ve been to sea before

Crown and anchor me

Or let me sail away

Joni Mitchell

Some time ago I shared some favourite ‘blue’ images, accompanied by a quote from this favourite Blue song. But the world has an inexhaustible supply of shades of blue.

Now Terri has asked to see some cobalt blues for her Sunday Stills challenge. So I’ve trawled through the photos from recent trips, and some older ones, to see what blues I could find that haven’t been shared before. And to introduce them I’ve quoted another verse from that song above.

The word cobalt comes from subterranean sprites known as kobolds. Ancient miners searching for silver sometimes found similar-looking metals which, when melted down, released toxic substances. The miners believed that this was the work of kobolds, who stole the silver and replaced it with a toxic metal. Today we know that these false silvers contained arsenic.

The paint known as cobalt blue is a mix of cobalt oxide and aluminium oxide, created by the French chemist Louis Jaques Thénard in the early nineteenth century. This became a popular and less expensive alternative to ultramarine, which was made using semi-precious lapis lazuli.

Cobalt can be defined as ‘a clean blue that is neither warm nor cold’. I hope my chosen images reflect that definition. Some have been shared previously, but here I’ve cropped them to focus on the deepest blues I could find.

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true

Harold Arlen
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Blue ceramic dragon with horns

Roof detail, Temple of Heaven, Beijing

[my feature photo was also taken here]

Blue door with marigold garland above

Door in Thamel, Kathmandu

Shuttered window in the 14th arrondissement, Paris

Dark blue shutters
Angular blue house with white chimney

House and chimney, Praia do Faro, Portugal

Blue bike with 'Born to Ride' badge

Motorbike parked in a village near Pokhara, Nepal

Mural of a monk looking at a large blue Buddha's face

On the wall of a café near the Peace Pagoda in Pokhara, Nepal

Small statue of a blue skinned god

In a bar in Thamel, Kathmandu

Street art in Sant Elena, Costa Rica

Large blue mural with coiled fern
Blue tiled stairs with tiled walls

Staircase in the Real Alcazar, Seville

Head and neck of a peacock

Peacock in the gardens of the Real Alcazar, Seville

Deep blue bird with long tail

Grackle in Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

In the garden of the Hotel Bougainvillea, San Jose, Costa Rica

Stem of deep blue flowers
Deep blue flower in front of a brick wall

Iris in a garden in Bamburgh, Northumberland

39 Comments

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