I am thrilled to have been invited by Lisa from Renovating Italy to participate in the Capture The Colour photographic competition run by TravelSupermarket.

This is right up my alley as I just cannot live without colour. It lifts my spirits, feeds my soul, strengthens me when I am feeling ‘off’ and brightens my days like nothing else can.

Colour has always been an essential and very important part of my life, right back to my early childhood days in East Africa being home-schooled by my mother. I can still recall drawing ants, leaves and flowers for my Botany classes – using the brightest coloured crayons I could find.

Today instead, I use my camera to capture colour in all its glorious guises. Being peripatetic by nature I have travelled extensively, and it never ceases to amaze me how light, ‘colours’ colour.

I find that in the UK, light softens colours; in Australia colours are heightened; in the USA colours are somehow cleaner and in Greece – oh the light in Greece does something to colours that defies description!  For me, Greek light is like a drug! It’s so pure and almost spiritual in the way it defines lines; intensifies shapes; heightens clarity and fortifies colours beyond the palette! Light and colour go hand-in-hand, and for me this is best seen in Greece.

BLUE

“That Greek blue” – Iconic!
There’s something about that Greek blue which is different to any other blue in the world. Mention ‘blue’ and Greece in the same sentence and you think of that glimmering, exotic colour which outshines the sky, the blue shadows on whitewashed houses, and the Aegean Sea.  It’s possibly the most photographed colour in the world, and yet it never ceases to amaze, astound and mesmerise, especially in Oia, Santorini.

GREEN

YELLOW

 

“White on white on white”
How else could I describe this scene as I turned the corner along a narrow cobblestone path in Oia, Santorini? It had been a long, hot, sun-bleached day and now at dusk, the colours had softened and relaxed. The scene was surreal – a blurred line between art and reality.

 Wondering around the Flea Market in Athens I could smell these strawberries for a good ten minutes before I actually found the vendor and his cart at the entrance to the Monistiraki Metro Station. The morning sun had warmed them to perfection and for once, they tasted as good as they looked and, as good as they smelt!
   

• Jeanne at Collage of Life
• Virginia at Paris Through My Lens
• Belinda at The Voice Behind my Door
• Vanessa at Far Northern Exposure
• LaLa at My Castle in Spain