Lens-Artists Challenge #264 – Primary Colors

Colorful Toucan

“Why would anyone want to photograph an indisputably colorful world in monochrome?”

Russell Miller

This week Sofia offers us an opportunity to explore the beauty of primary colors. Accepting that red, blue and yellow are the true primary colors, I’ve challenged myself to include only images that include all three. Mother Nature offers us a marvelous example with the colorful Toucan image above. On the other hand, the bright colors of La Boca in Buenos Aires shown below are clearly the work of a creative (and fun-loving) architect.

La Boca Fun, Buenos Aires

“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.”

Pablo Picasso

From South America all the way back to the beach here on Kiawah, I came upon this scene during my daily walk right after I saw Sofia’s challenge. Timing is everything!

Colorful Kiawah Scene

“I believe in the photographer’s magic – the ability to stir the soul with light and shape and color.”

Amy Nasser

Back on the road, I’m including an image from our visit to Central Europe where we were amazed at the number of different shades of red hair we came across 🙂! But speaking of red, the bucket along with the flowers and the woman’s jacket provided an excellent scene for today’s challenge.

Perfect Purveyor

“You can say things with color that can’t be said in black and white.”

Edward Weston

Another image offering a good fit for the challenge comes from our visit to the rice fields of China’s Longsheng. These lovely ladies were posing for a souvenir photo with a local photographer. Happily, my lens was loaded and ready to take advantage of the moment. I’m happy to have an opportunity to showcase their finery.

Longsheng Ladies, China

“Colour plays itself out along a richer band of feelings: more wavelengths, more radiance, more sensation.”

Joey Meyerowitz

Once we start thinking about colors we see them everywhere. As we travel we are more attuned to our surroundings, noticing things to which we wouldn’t give a second glance in our everyday lives. All of the elements of the collage I’ve created below were captured during our travels. The beach scene included earlier was only captured because I knew there was a color blogging challenge. IMHO, the beauty of travel, as well as of blogging, is that it makes us both notice and capture the interesting minute of everyday life.

Collage of Colors

“Working in color is an additional ingredient in the juggling act of making an interesting photograph.”

Jeff Mermelstein

I’ll close with two very different artists’ explorations of color. The first is a beautiful painting I photographed in an art gallery in Israel, and the second a huge example of wall art from NYC’s World Trade Center.

Impression of Primary Colors

“It’s that lyricism, that mystery of color itself, that’s my signature.”

Marie Cosines

Wall Art, NYC

“There’s only one rule in photography – never develop color film in chicken noodle soup.”

Freeman Patterson

As you may have guessed, I had some fun with this week’s challenge, so sincere thanks to Sofia for that. We hope you’ll join us this week. Be sure to link your responses to Sofia’s stunning original here, and to use the Lens-Artists Tag to appear in our reader section. Thanks also to John for last week’s “Faces in a Crowd” challenge. It was interesting to see how many different interpretations were offered in your responses. Finally, we hope you’ll join us next week when Anne leads the challenge on her Slow Shutter Speed site. Until then, as always please stay safe, be kind, and enjoy the journey.

Looking for more information on joining our challenge? Click here.

Tags: COLOR, Kiawah, LENS-ARTISTS, photography, Primary colors, travel

• August 26, 2023
• Photography
• 131 Comments