The color of frustration (!)

Don't get me wrong...I love a strong, slightly warm charcoal-y gray (sewing an entire wardrobe's-worth of clothes from a bolt of charcoal wool is a dream of mine)...but the gray skies & lack of light lately seem to be conspiring to drive me crazy when it comes to photo-taking. White becomes gray, warm whites come out cool, and the usual gorgeous, rich shadows are nowhere to be found; everything seems dull to me without the sunshine. And just when I finally started instagram-ing!

I could have simply pointed the camera at the sky at any given moment this week and ended up with a vast collection of images for this month's installation of the ROY G BIV photo challenge, but decided instead to take a journey through my photo archive. The first trio shows the light-play/shadows of glass tealight holders on a nicely textured paper...I liked how the resulting marks almost could have been created with a water-soluble pencil or paints.

The next trio features the Venetian lagoon on a sun-less day. The overcast sky created a distinctly gray effect/feeling; yet, compared with a "standard" gray, you can make out shades of blue, green & various neutrals mixed up in there. I suppose it's actually quite rare that a color is indeed pure, i.e. unaffected by the influence of its surroundings. And of course our different computer screens further impact how we interpret colors...

This last trio is of the paving stones in Piazza Pitti, just after a storm. There are few things more glorious (in my opinion) than the moment the sun emerges after a rainstorm, when shadows return and the city is clean & refreshed.

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A few details in case you are not familiar with the
ROY G BIV  photo challenge ~ Artists Jennifer Coyne Qudeen 
& Julie Booth started this project a few years ago; each month
is devoted  to a different color of the rainbow. Since we have
already explored the seven "official" colors, we will spend the
rest of the some bonus colors. Everyone is welcome to join in
the search. Please visit Jennifer & Julie's blogs for links
to each month's participants. Guidelines are here.