Color

Peacock on a Fence

There was a time in my life when I was almost afraid of color. I wore a lot of black. Or mostly black with a little red thrown in. Or mostly navy blue with a little red thrown in. Or mostly brown with a little red thrown in.

Are you sensing a pattern here?

As as adult, and with confidence in myself, I've learned to love color.

My house has every color of the rainbow on its walls. I like to tell people we got drunk and painted the house. My favorite color scheme in my home, the dining room, is orange and teal. I have almost a pumpkin orange on the walls, light teal window treatments and a teal, brown, and cream rug. It makes me happy every time I see it.

I wear color too. I'm not afraid of it any more. Well, maybe I'm afraid of yellow. It makes me look too sallow. But other than yellow, if I like it, I'll wear it. In fact, I'm toting around a patent leather kelly green purse right now. It's fabulous.

Today I wore a light orange sweater topped with a dark plum corduroy jacket, a black satin skirt with dark plum flowers sewn on and embroidered in orange thread. It sounds a bit out there, but trust me, I looked fierce. (As Christian would say.)

Color adds so much to my life. As much as I love the serene calm of white snow, all that white space calling out to me; I love the gorgeous fuchsia, celadon, kelly, violet, and all the blushing colors of Spring, more. Or the warm, rich colors of Fall deep with spices, the burnt red of crackling fires and falling leaves, and the deep shades of football jerseys.

I'm discovering that my personality and love of color is appearing in my photographs as well. While I'll always love the dark tones of a cool vintage photo,


or the peaceful feeling of a nice black and white conversion (or mocha and white),



color is my forte.



Rich, saturated, glorious color.



Color just suits me.



And I still love to add a little of my red every now and then.




What's your signature color?

Chasing Peacocks

Let's take a little break from pink birds and move on to birds of other colors.

This weekend I took the kids to the zoo and met some friends there. You've seen them in pictures here before. While I think they enjoy having me take pictures of their children, I'm not so sure they're thrilled with my price - allowing me to take pictures of them as well. Anyway, Not Exactly A Princess brought The Pumpkin, W brought her adorable daughter Isabella, and A brought her 2 year old twins. We had a whole pack of kids!

As you may know, children in packs tend to be a bit more rambunctious than they normally are. (Well, at least Hollis is. Holden is already rambunctious without a crowd.) We had a hard time containing their little bodies and big spirits at times. Especially when they spotted something to chase:



I kept my camera on a high shutter speed and pointed and clicked. I was thrilled to discover I'd caught the startled geese in mid-flight. But annoyed that they there was that distracting construction site in the background ruining my shot. Oh well. I did what I could to minimize the background.

Then, later on some peacocks decided to strut right across our path. Poor birds. Of course, I didn't help much. I was yelling, "Don't touch the peacocks!" while laughing and snapping pictures with the camera. I suppose it might have helped if I'd actually chased the kids.









Hmmmm.... In looking through these photos again, I'm seeing a pattern. Holden and Caleb are the ones chasing the birds. No wonder NOEaP and I feel it necessary to drink.