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Gallery: expressions of a single colour
Photography is of course all about colour. Even black and white photos are rarely just that but are all tones of grey. And good colour photography relies on the judicious combination of different shades, whether complementary or clashing or somewhere in between.
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Gallery: never jaded by jade
Jade is associated with calmness, balance, healing and protection. The stone is especially prized by the Chinese. For them it symbolises prosperity, success, and good luck. It is also a symbol of renewal, longevity, and even immortality. It is said to be a living stone, from the earth but with a luminous quality shared with sunlight and the stars. It is thus a connection between the realms of heaven and earth.
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Gallery: does white exist?
Peer at a white flower and you’ll observe nuances of different shades. The same in a white sky, even a field of snow. Light and shade play tricks with the eyes and white turns to grey, to blue, to cream. Perhaps that’s why, when I started to search my archives for ‘white’ images to share for this week’s Sunday Stills challenge, I found the purest whites in manmade objects.
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Gallery: the colours of the season
Red and green should never be seen without a colour in between. Whoever coined that old phrase clearly didn’t have Christmas in mind. Surely there are no two more seasonal colours than red and green?
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Gallery: all that glitters is not gold (or silver)
Martin Luther said, 'For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver. But while he makes a good point about the glories of nature, there are still times when we need a bit of bling in our lives. And now is probably one of those times!
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Gallery: all the colours of the kaleidoscope
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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Gallery: what’s in a name? Burgundy / Beaujolais / Ruby reds
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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Gallery: feeling the blues
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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Gallery: looking on the pink side
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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Gallery: the monks of Luang Prabang (a life in orange)
You only have to spend a few hours in Luang Prabang to see why this town regularly tops lists of travellers’ favourite places. Its laid-back vibe, its historic royal palace and perhaps most of all its beautiful Buddhist temples, over 30 in total. What struck me was the way that the monks and tourists co-exist, with full respect among (most of) the latter for the traditions of the former.
