No matter how far I travel, my holiday photographs are always going to be a standing joke in my family. “Would you like to see my pictures?” I ask proudly, full memory stick in one hand and battered, ‘beginner’ SLR in the other. “Sure,” they reply patiently. “How many of them are of children and stray dogs?”
I am trying to expand my repertoire. Nowadays I take photographs of stray cats and grown-up people too. But it’s always the same. I hiked for eight days in Chile’s Patagonia. I am certain that region invented the colour blue, what with all the glacial lakes and ice fields. Yet when it came to finding my favourite ‘blue’ photograph… there wasn’t a glacier in sight.
Below you’ll find the moments I chose to capture the colours White, Yellow, Red, Green and Blue after my friend and fellow blogger Arianwen at Beyond Blighty suggested I enter Travel Supermarket.com’s Capture The Colour competition.
Of course I started in all the logical places – looking for greens in the jungle and reds in the breathtaking waters of Colombia’s Caño Cristales but, true to form, I ended up finding the colours not in nature but in the crazy, messed-up chaos of community, from Colombia to India, via the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
Still, I am broadening my horizons. I’ve selected just two photographs of children and there isn’t a stray dog in sight. My family will be delighted!
(p.s And now it’s over to you lovely people at Muselet, Bogota Eats and Drinks, La Blogotana, A Year Without Peanut Butter and Not In The Pink… consider this your invitation to dig out your most colourful photographs too! You can enter the competition here.)
Like this? You’ll love Colombia a comedy of errors.
Banana Skin Flip Flops 
I love taking photos of children while traveling also! They capture the spirit of a place!
I agree. I love that blue photograph – child comes home from school, waits for mum to answer the door, so normal but also so fleeting!
Amazing pictures! I am a huge cat lover so must say the yellow one is my favorite. 🙂 I absolutely love the green and blue ones, too.
Thank you, I’m glad I branched out into cats then… a whole new world 🙂
Love the red! The color is striking and the expression is beautifully captured.
Thanks, bless her heart. She has such a cheeky grin!
boom. totally happening. thanks for the inspiration/invite! Your green and red photos are especially gorgeous.
(also, I’m pretty sure at least 30% of my photos are of stray dogs. It’s a growing market, you know)
I’m going to do a post dedicated to LatAm strays, dig out your favourite snaps too – in fact, let’s launch our own competition!
done and done. Tell me the time and place, and I and my 9 billion photos of Colombian puppies will be there!
These are really nice. I’m usually too scared of being shouted at to take photos of other people. I have to be super sneaky!
I just check it’s okay before taking the pics – people are normally quite chuffed to be asked. Especially parents! I think it’s best to get in the habit of asking because the sneaky pics are so hard to get right (for me anyway, I always take about 10 of everything). Funnily enough, it goes both ways in Colombia so I end up agreeing when someone wants a picture of a tall, blonde girl… don’t want to be a hypocrite… had to pose with a whole family at the Salt Cathedral once!
Your photographs are gorgeous. I hope one day I can take pictures that are as nice as these. I particularly love what you chose for white. It’s really beautiful. 🙂
Thank you for inviting me to take part in this. It looks like fun.
Do it, do it and let me know – I think the closing date is Monday… 🙂
Gorgeous pictures. That red one is definitely my favourite. I can’t help but smile when I look at it!
The green photo won the green category! So chuffed! You can see the other winners here: http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/holidays/capture-the-colour/
Congrats on winning, guys! Awesome shots!
Thank you!
Congratulations on your “Green” win = and best of luck for the grand prize! I was so glad to see a ‘normal’ picture win 🙂
Thanks I know, I think sometimes there is a lot of pressure to edit photos, especially when the theme is colour like that. I try to edit mine but they sometimes end up looking worse so after half an hour I’m more or less back to where I started or, worse, I find myself looking at an edited photo and thinking… there’s something wrong with that! Luckily, I don’t think I had to touch the green one. That’s India for you!
I suppose the photoshopped look – like hyperreaalism in art – has its place, but it doesn’t appeal to my sense of telling a non-fiction story – as travel photography must be 🙂
I’ve just spent a month in India and I can’t imagine putting my images through! Photoshop! The whole country is so astonishingly bright and vibrant, they’re just perfect as they are. I love your ‘green’ shot – great photo!
First of all heartfelt congratulation for wining 1st place in “Capture The Color Contest” in GREEN Category. Awesome photography & post.