I love color.
I imagine most of us do.
No matter how much we adore faded, vintage-looking, sepia, textured and processed images, our natural world exists in riotous, glorious, intense color.
How do I presume to improve upon it?
Rhododendron calendulaceum (Flame Azalea)
The colors we see are wavelengths of light, hurtling through space until absorbed or reflected by a chance encounter with a physical object.
I believe we can feel them, and that is why they can influence our moods, our rest, our creativity.
Rhododendron japonicum (Azalea)
And so, let me take you for a technicolor twirl through our public city arboretum, home to one of the largest collections of azalea species and hybrids in the world, through photographs unaltered from the scene they captured.
Azalea obtusum
A place that claims my astounded attention many days each merry May.
So much beauty and energy, they must be shared.
Don’t they just make you happy?
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your recent comments and visits and warm welcome to those newly following!
Wishing you a colorful week!
xo
– g
p.s. I apologize if you received phantom posts from me via your readers this weekend. I had to test a few new options for hosting my photos for here and Blogger seemingly didn’t delete them. grrr. I became terribly frustrated with Blogger last year due to how horrible my photos looked on it and began hosting them myself on our stock photo website but now am exceeding the bandwidth for that site, which is our business, whoops, so still researching a solution that will be good for at least a year. I know I could switch blogging platforms but I think that’s a dreadful pain, isn’t it?
Good news is that my new hard drives (two 2 terabyte drives) will be here Wednesday so I can finish processing our photos from the Oregon trip. Imagine, a 2 terabyte drive that will fit on my desk. In our agency in Hollywood, our 1/2 terabyte drives took up an entire wall! Once I shift everything over, I’ll be installing Adobe CS5 which should be fun and speed me up, too! Which means you’ll be getting more photos than ever, gack! xo
I like the vintage-style sepia pictures and processed photos, but in real life I love to surround myself with bright, strong colors. I believe too, that colors affect us in many ways. One interesting post I read about it was here http://colourmehappyblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/are-you-colour-deprived.html
I'm hoping to get cs5 at some point too, but first I need more memory for the computer. It's crazy how much space pictures take.
Oh, and your photos blow me away, this time like every other time! :)
The azaleas are truly gorgeous this year aren't they? Glad they came out before all this recent rain, otherwise they'd be gone in a flash!
I'm so glad I had the recent photo session at the arboretum and had a chance to see them myself!
So beautiful all these images:)
Also want to thank you for the many luscious blogs you have linked here. I've spent SO much time looking over them!
AMEN 2 COLOUR… you know just how much I love it!!
Your azalea collection is spectacular, sigh. They are very special to me as they remind me of my dear aunt – the one who is responsible for all this flower loving madness!
I agree that pics hosted with Blogger look terrible, but have you considered using your Flickr account? It's working for me, unless you can convince me otherwise? Let me know if I can help, xJanine
Love the Azalea, beautiful strong colours (pinks, greens, corals, blues…) always attract me – with (every now and then) a dash of grey & black for the more reflective days that I have sometimes… Love from London x
I enjoyed my technicolour stroll, so gorgeous.
As for the technical stuff I am hopeless with all that. I just post a few photos to my blog usually via Flickr and direct readers to my account there if they want to see more :)
these pictures are just so beautiful :)
x
http://goldielocksandcupid.blogspot.com/
Technicolor indeed! I love all these colourful shots, they really bring energy and joy! :)
Moa xx
i love the bright colors of these pictures in contrast to the very soft and ethereal ones you usually post. they are very much the epitome of summer and fall.
i did get those weird posts but thought it was MY computer that was messing up, lol!!
how exciting to get the cs5…i have heard that it is fantastic and practically does the all of the work for you!!!
Dear Georgianna, what dazzling colors, love them all but the very last photograph is my favorite, love the contrasts.
Gorgeous! I love color!
Pink speaks most to me, but I love purple and green and white too.
wow, beautiful as always.
Thank you, everyone!! Glad you weren't too jolted by this unexpected color fest!
Jutta, thanks so much for the link. Very interesting post indeed and very pertinent. I'll let you know how CS5 is!
Yes, Sylvia, the azaleas and rhodies were incredible this year. I'm sure more than usual. These photos were taken before all this recent rain no doubt made the blossoms fall. So glad you enjoy my blog roll! I'm very behind adding new ones but hope to catch up this week. So many creative and lovely people in the world!
Janine, How lovely that these remind you of your aunt. I'm glad she instilled a love of flowers so we can all benefit from your gorgeous images. Thank you so much for your offer to help re: photos. I do have a few here that are hosted on Flickr and I think they look very good, no change from original really, but I don't necessarily want to put everything for the blog up on Flickr. Also, I'm cautious about Flickr as I've seen them delete a few people's accounts. Maybe not a problem but I'm paranoid about it. I'll let you know what I work out.
Have a wonderful day, everyone! xo
Ahhh, so beautiful images Georgianna! Colors are my passion too – vintage and of course strong natural bright ones;)
I Love all these photos, so it's rather difficult to answer which of them I like the most… but if counting from the above, – 8th, 10, 12 and the last one speak most to me! :)
Would it be boring of me to once again say these are fantastic photos and I LOVE the colours?
Lovely as always and a great burst of colour!
I'm not sure what kind of problem you are having with your pictures on blogger, but whenever I use the "new post" tab, my pictures look like they're centered until I publish it. I've been using Windows Live Writer and haven't had any other problems.
Thanks for the colour!
We so love your sharing your glorious color with us! I know lots of the decorating crowd currently prefer the browns and sepias and such. But I want to embrace all the color I can. It is magnificent to behold.
Brenda
Hi Georgianna,
Wow! such amazing beauty again. I love pinks and blues in the garden best but there is something very striking about your orange and yellow!
Oh,and redecorating a guest room would be so much fun!!!
Thank you for all the beauty you share,
Carolyn
Outstanding photos! Thanks for sharing the photos from your arboretum, ours is very plain compared to yours – mostly trees and it is on an old gravel pit.
I like pinks and lavender, comfort colours.
Wow another amazing beauty.
Thank you for sharing.
Dearest G, i am a huge fan of colors too! Your photos always make me feel so relax and happy! I just can't stop looking at them ~ gorgeous! I am loving the way you write too ~ just as beautiful as your photos! Congratz on your new hard drives!! I am looking forward to yoru beautiful trip photos! Have a lovely merry happy day and LOVE to you!
Speechless, breathless, on this gorgeous post! I am so glad the tech faeries are coming! I think my soul colors are probably represented by your ninth photo down in this lovely post. That is a great thought and makes me think of that great quote, "An artist dips her brush into her soul…" something like that. Blessings and thanks for the beauty friend.
Dear Georgianna,
thanks for sharing these wonderful images!
Yours is always a magic place to visit!
Stefania
Unaltered?? Good Lord! You really are so talented! This was a delicious treat. And, yes, these images, these perfect, dazzling shots of color did make me happy. You, of course, make me happy.
Beautiful photos !
love the shallow depth of field you used and the amazing colors you captured. my favorite was the yellow and red one in front of the pink background but they were all astounding!!
This post is a treasure chest for those of us who love colour G, you capture it so well :)
For myself I prefer the dark color of lack. But this pics are sooo beautiful! Seems like I can smell the taste of spring and can hear some birds sing a natural song.
Thanks for sharing this!
WOW, this must be an amazing garden! Your photos are so beautiful, g, and yes, this stunning array of color makes me happy! :)