Lens-Artists Challenge: Colorful Expressions in Nature

The colors in natural scenery have always drawn me in. I think I like nature so much because of its colorfulness. There’s such a diversity in nature’s palette that it beckons to be photographed and remembered forever.

These first two photos are from my neighbor’s garden, where there’s splashes of color in a sea of green. My neighbor has nurtured the plants and flowers for over thirty years. It’s truly amazing how she can grow just about anything, and I love her style with plants growing where they want and in symbiosis with each other. This abundance of plants in her gardens brings a lot of wildlife–bees, birds, squirrels, raccoons, turtles, and even a den of foxes (I’m looking forward to getting photos of these!).

Here are some photos of my garden. While it’s not as large of a space as my neighbor’s, it has some brightly colored roses that are all in full bloom right now. The bushes are well over six feet tall in some places with a few roses bigger than my hand in diameter. My neighbors think the roses were planted about forty years ago. Needless to say, I’m drawn in by all of the colors. It makes me happy to see the colorful garden outside my office window–it gives me a nice little break in between work to gaze out my window at the myriad of colors in my garden with the green grass and trees in the background.

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I don’t always photograph a rainbow of colors, but I do like contrasting colors to highlight the scene. I also like taking photos of really green or really blue colors, especially at the beach. I think it’s very peaceful and serene. And admittedly, it probably has a bit to do with leaving California when I was younger, then living in the mostly brown desert for over twenty-five years, and then returning to beautiful California. Don’t get me wrong; I have photos of stunning desert landscapes (more on that in a minute), but I prefer the wild ocean, trees, and flowers of California–so many more colors!

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California beaches have beautiful shades of blue that contrast with the shoreline colors, but further inland, there’s more greens–unless you count the blue jay that felt compelled to be in the next photo–I can use to create those contrasts. Right now, the apple orchards in the foothills of the mountains are blooming, creating soft pinks, bright pinks, and whites against a green background of blooming vegetation and a bright blue sky. I love the contrasts; I think it is pleasing to the eye and brings just as much calmness as the colorful ocean scenes.

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And, as promised, the southwestern deserts do have colorful scenes, when you look for them. I was depressed by the surrounding brown colors when I lived there, so I often looked for the most colorful scenes to photograph.

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Whether or not we get to travel that far from home, I think it’s important to find the joy in nature, which means looking for pleasing scenery with a variety of colors. Softer colors bring calmness, contrasting colors can highlight interesting or beautiful subjects, and vivid colors spark happiness. Earth tones, blues, and greens remind us that the earth is alive and needs to be taken care of, if we want to continue enjoying its many colors. I am sharing these photos for Anne’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #194 – Colorful Expressions, Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (CFFC) – Water, and Jez’s Water Water Everywhere (WWE).