" She wore blue velvet. Bluer than velvet was the night. Softer then satin was light. From the stars."
(Blue Velvet, Bobby Vinton 1950)
"Like him, I am doubtful that your love is true. But if you decide to call on me, ask for Mr Blue."
( Mr Blue, The Fleetwoods 1959)
There have been many songs written about blue. Blue velvet, Blue Bayou and Mr. Blue are just a few examples. Elvis alone had 21 songs with blue in the title. We speak about feeling blue, singing the blues or that we love blueberries. Frank Sinatra was called Old Blue Eyes. Do you know anyone called Old Hazel Eyes? It just doesn't have the same ring to it!!! What would song writers do without the word blue?
Photographers, especially ones that work with colors, would be lost without blue. It is such a great color and it has so many shades: azure, baby blue, cobalt, cyan, indigo and sapphire are just a few of them. Sometimes colors create a physical reaction. For example 'red' has been shown to raise blood pressure. But colors also have a cultural reaction. In the U.S., white is for wedding dresses while in some Eastern cultures white is the color for mourning and funerals.
Some colors are classified as warm colors: red, pink, yellow, gold and orange. Others are cool colors: blue, green, turquoise and silver. The warm colors are thought to be exciting and the cools are thought to have a calming, nurturing effect on people. In nature, blue is the color of water and green is plant life, a natural, life sustaining duo.
I really love having a mixture of warm and cool colors in images. Think of sunsets and sunrises. The cool blue sky and the warm red/orange sunlight blend together to create a wonderful expanse of colors. I think that is why people love them. That combination of warm and cool excites people and calms them all in one image.
Here is an example; the mixture of the warm orange color in the sky and the cool silver, blue of the ocean give a great backdrop for these two different ships!!
I love photographing a beautiful woman in a blue dress. It is almost as if all I see is the blue dress!!
But in nature is where I think I love the color blue the most!!!
A Great Blue Heron with its silver blue feathers is an amazing example of nature's palette being put to work better than any artist could ever think of doing!! Notice the blue water and green plant in this image!!
A beautiful deep blue sky on a clear day is a wonderful feast for the eyes. Add a blue lake and the image is even more awe inspiring!!
White is considered a neutral color! If you add a splash of it to a canvas of blue, as in this image of a solitary egret standing in a blue lake on a early morning in Sanibel Florida, I think you have a great but simple combination of colors.
That same combination can be seen in this photo of a bride and her bridesmaids. They in their blue dresses are helping the bride put her white wedding dress on. The mother's brown dress, which matches with the curtain in the background, adds a sense of balance to the image.
If I am photographing a gathering and you're wearing a blue or red dress, you can be sure I will be photographing you!!
Young or old I love to photograph people in blue!!
But in nature is where I really love photographing blue!! Give me a blue sky, throw in some blue water and I am one happy photographer who is never BLUE!!!
