Friday, August 27, 2010

The Color Purple


By the side of the road
London, ON, July 2010
[Click photo to embiggen]

We often think of flowers as delicate things that live behind glass, whose purpose in life is to be purchased and brought home for a special occasion. Yet long before florists with state-of-the-art air conditioned display units dotted the urban landscape, I'm thinking Mother Nature knew a thing or two about painting the landscape with stunning color.

So the next time you find yourself in a desolate corner of the city and come across a riot of color in an otherwise abandoned field, I hope you'll take the time to record it in some way. Because beauty happens where we least expect it.

Your turn: Beauty in a surprising place. Please discuss.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the off-center focus and the bokeh in the rest of the photo.

My teens were with 24 other folks a few months ago, driving through the "badlands" of South Dakota. No flowers were even necessary to elicit gasps of awe with every turn and twist of the road.

fredamans said...

This is a very beautiful photograph. It would look fabulous in my bathroom!

fini said...

Beautiful colour :) I do agree with you..Flowers never fails us. Unique in its own special way :)

Mojo said...

A year or so ago I spotted these growing out of a crack in the curb in front of my house. I was mowing the lawn at the time and had to stop and document what I saw.

More recently, though, the landscape was slightly friendlier, but the environment was certainly hostile enough. Over 100°F and probably close to 100% relative humidity is definitely hostile if you ask me!

Nature's always been -- and always will be -- the best gardener. Because she knows what each little element needs in order to survive. And if we'd listen better we could probably solve most of the problems of famine and starvation in the world. Like they do at Eden Foundation. They don't try to figure out "how to make this crop grow here", they look instead at "what grows here now" and grow that. Amazing, huh? why is nobody paying more attention to this strategy?