Icy cold temperatures kept me indoors quite a bit over the last few weeks, and since I’d rather explore and experiment with my camera outdoors, I delayed work on Dogwood’s Week 3 prompt when I looked at the forecast and saw that this week promises warmer weather.

I managed to complete the Week 2 prompt more than a week ago. Somewhat.

The prompt, “Color Harmony,” under the “composition” category, called for photographers to:

Get out your color wheel. Do opposites attract? Can there be harmony with opposite colors? Does the Hulk wear purple pants? Mix warm and cool colors.

I had a number of things working against me. The weather (rainy and/or cold), meetings, and the beginning of a new semester conspired to limit my time and energy for photographic creativity. Here’s what I managed:

[Shot with my Canon].  I like the silhouette of the the house and trees in this photo of the sunset sky as the evening clouds began to roll in, but I’m not pleased with the composition.  At the moment of the shot, I was focused on the sky and getting out of the cold! I should have changed my position a bit to get the right balance. Few things can compete with the beauty of a naturally painted sky–and this one offers a nice blend of pink to orange to yellow masking the blue day sky.

I snapped this one on my iPhone while racing through Walmart. I’m not a fan of fake flowers, but the pink and purple “silk” flowers on display drew my attention. Why? Pink and purple, of course! I edited the photo because I couldn’t tolerate the fact that they were so obviously fake.  Now, they have a reason to look “unreal.”  The conundrum here was trying to determine if the photo captures “warm” and “cool” colors. Purple and pink are straddlers. The pink feels a bit warmer than cool to me; the purple a bit cooler than warm. What do you think?

Lastly, another one snapped on my phone. These are my mom’s forever sunflowers. I forgive them for being fake because they are so realistic that many people think they’re the real thing. Furthermore, I accept sunflowers in all forms.  😉

Do they meet the challenge? I’m not convinced there were enough opposite or warm and cool colors to create interest.

I’ll keep working on “color harmony”–when the weather warms a bit.

Week 1: Vision: Looking Ahead