03-APR-2008
Truck decorations, Cochin, India, 2008
Many Indian truck drivers decorate their own trucks in lavish Indian
motifs featuring primary colors. The further south we went in India, the
more colorful the decoration.
07-JAN-2008
Florist, Chau Doc, Vietnam, 2008
The young vendor is overwhelmed by the intensity of color that surrounds him and engulfs his shop. I caught him as he was about to leave his little shop on the sidewalks alongside Chau Doc’s sprawling city marketplace. The colors of his shirt and hat help merge him into the colors of the shop itself. With an array of flowers on his left and bundle of colorful packed items on his right, he seems almost incidental. And that is exactly what I was trying to say. In some cases, the man makes the sale. In this case, the product seems to sell itself. The man becomes somewhat incidental. And that is the contribution of the color here. In black and white, everything becomes both equal and confused. In color, the flowers definitely rule.
06-JAN-2008
Market colors, Long Xuyen, Vietnam, 2008
One of the things I search for when visiting any travel scene is density of color. I certainly found just that in the Long Xuyen market, a river town deep in the Mekong Delta. The goods were colorful, the clothing even more so. And here one of its vendors is having breakfast from a richly painted red bowl. Greens, blues, reds and yellows dominate the image. These colors give the image an energy and beauty that no black and white version could equal.
08-NOV-2007
Indian summer, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona, 2007
Canyon de Chelly embraces nearly 84,000 acres within the Navajo reservation. While administered by the US National Park Service, these rock canyons belong to the Navajo people. Nowhere is the phrase "Indian Summer" more fitting – the temperatures for our November visit were warm, and nature's autumnal colors were virtually on fire for us. Using a 28mm wideangle lens, I moved in on the canopy to fill the upper third of the frame with the deep burnt orange color. A band of back-lighted orange and yellow leaves fills the middle third and the animated reddish brown tree trunks dominate the bottom third. If the assault of vivid color becomes too much for the eye, it can always flee to the dull brown forest floor for respite.
06-SEP-2007
Blue Man, Shanghai, China, 2007
Normally I would not have photographed this man sitting in front of his closed shop. However the color coincidence here makes the image incongruous and thereby expressive. He wears a blue shirt, blue pants, and blue sandals. He sits in front of a bright blue door to his shop. Off to the side are blue and white tubs and blue stools. To call him and his environment a symphony in blue would be an understatement. The color makes the image.
15-SEP-2007
Cart, Beijing, China, 2007
The most mundane subjects can aspire to art. Such is the nature of color at sunset. I made this image in one of Beijing’s hutongs, or alleyways. The setting sun has bathed its simple canvas cover in gold, and burnished the metal facing with red lettering on the cart as well. The red brick, and rusted frame of the car, along with the reddish sidewalk all contribute to the expression of beauty here.
16-SEP-2007
Façade, The Forbidden City, Beijing, China, 2007
Completed in 1420, the Forbidden City is China's most magnificent palace complex. Twenty-four emperors ruled from here for nearly 500 years. I found the stained, crumbling facades of its buildings still awaiting restoration to be the most compelling sights of all. They echo China's turbulent past. It is the flawed richness of the fading color that makes this image speak of that past. The greens, reds, and browns here are soothing, yet attempt to mask a decay that is quite evident at upper left and lower center. It is the tension between the beauty of the color and the reality of its flaws that gives this image it’s meaning.
16-SEP-2007
Natural camouflage, The Forbidden City, Beijing, China, 2007
The quiet Eastern Courtyards of The Forbidden City hold many wonders, among them some trees that look as if they are wearing military garb. The green and brown coloration, and the jigsaw puzzle-like shapes of those color patches are stunning reminders that nature knows how to take care of its own. I moved in to abstract that bark, including none of the tree’s shape or form. The knot at lower left is the only clue I offer.
02-SEP-2007
Cheng Hoon Teng Temple, Malacca, Malaysia, 2007
The oldest Chinese temple outside of China, Cheng Hoon Teng embraces three doctrines, Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian. I don’t read Chinese, so I don’t know what these words speak of here. Yet the colors of this image, offering words of burnished copper and glowing translucent green glass, speak of time, reverence, and wealth.
08-AUG-2007
The colors of dawn, Bright Angel Trail, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2007
Dawn light illuminates the famed trail that leads from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon down to a plateau and ultimately to the Colorado River. I made this wideangle image at 5:45 a.m., just before the effect of the rising sun became visible. What we see here is the equivalent of twilight – the sun’s light is being refracted and scattered off the earth’s atmosphere, even though we don’t yet see the sun itself. The result: a palette of delicate colors – the browns, mauves, and pinks that give the famed Grand Canyon much of its character. I chose this vantage point so that I could use the twisted tree trunk in the foreground to echo the twists and turns of the Bright Angel Trail on the plateau below. (Compare the colors of this dawn image to those of a twilight image of the canyon at
http://www.pbase.com/image/83717338 .)
07-AUG-2007
The colors of twilight, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2007
The last rays of a setting sun brush the top of a distant rock formation on the floor of the Grand Canyon, leaving everything else in the grasp of twilight – that time of day when the sun has slipped below the horizon, bathing the canyon in the subtle, indirect light caused by the refraction and scattering of the sun’s rays from the atmosphere. The colors of twilight are muted, and in the case of the Grand Canyon, spectacular in their own right. Pink, mauve, brown, and a hint of khaki drape the towering rock formations on the canyon floor in a mantle of delicate shades. Colors such as these make viewing the Grand Canyon just after sunset a memorable experience. I anchor the image with a huge formation just below me, which echoes the shape of the towers that soar beyond it. I removed the sky from my frame entirely – it was cloudless and clear, and pulled the eye right out of the scene. (Compare the colors of this twilight image to those of a dawn image of the canyon at
http://www.pbase.com/image/83717341.)
16-JUL-2007
Bird of Paradise, Phoenix, Arizona, 2007
It was 115 blistering degrees on the July day I made this image. I was working with one of my tutorial students in my own backyard, and it was too hot to remain in the sun for more than a few moments. Besides, the sun was directly overhead, making nature photography very difficult. These factors drove us deep into the shade of the palms, forcing us to work in flat light, without benefit of shadow or highlights. We had to concentrate instead on line, pattern, and most of all, the blending of harmonious colors. This Bird of Paradise plant, with its complex and delicate tangle of blooms, stems, and buds offers all of them and more. Because natural shadows are missing, we lose the typical three-dimensional perspective we usually see in nature photographs. Instead, this image looks more like a Chinese silk-screen painting than a photograph. The peach colored stucco wall harmonizes with the red and orange blossoms and buds, and offers a softly textured backdrop, illuminated entirely by reflected light. Sometimes a difficult photographic situation not only can teach us an indelible lesson, but can lead to unexpected success.