Keep Your Eyes Open, Look for Color all Around You

So my inspiration for today was color.  However a busy work day and evening meeting, led to another tired evening in which I started a blog and ended up asleep.  The problems of laying on a couch while working on a laptop.  I will plan to continue this challenge again on Day 8.  However here are several where I think color stands out, bright and vibrant.  Many are taken while traveling abroad, it seems other countries are more vibrant in their color choices or I am more aware of them when I am there.

A group of school children in South Africa.  Really there are a lot of more neutral colors in the picture, but it makes the blue and the bits of yellow and orange jump out at you.

I have just always loved this picture.  I am not sure why, I don't know if it is the spot of vibrant colors encroaching in on the picture or what, but it has always enamored me, this unknown woman stirring a gigantic pot of sadza in Zimbabwe.  Perhaps you can enlighten me.

I think the contrast of the blue and orange here really sets off this picture, perhaps it draws out the yellow in the foreground or I don't know what but it shows a culture rich in color as they prepare for a wedding in Cambodia.

Also at the wedding, the bright yellow/gold parasols pull the yellow out throughout the picture and make a vibrant setting for a happy and joyous occasion. 

Here the pastel colors of the balloons and silly string add a new dimension to this picture of the couple cutting the cake.  However this is a common thing in Cambodia for balloons to fall from the ceilling and people to spray silly string on the couple as they cut the cake, it was festive and joyous, but most likely a good thing the wedding dress was rented and someone else can clean up the silly string.

Ah, yes, here is one from close to home, good old Slider.  A great mass of contrasting vibrant colors, set to a background of a rather non-contrasting mass of fans.

Off to Paraguay, bright t-shirts and brightly painted tires, make a contrast to the rather nondescript (color wise) landscape of the Chaco.

I am not sure here, but found this picture amongst a collection of camping pictures and found it interesting how it jumped out at me with just the three colors being prominent here, and such  a setting that typically I would find boring and why would you snap a picture of an ashen fire.  I am pretty sure the composition, as well as color, has something to do with making this intriguing.

This is from my garden, but much is green, or shades of green, but varying textures and then contrasted with that little touch of red.

This here is a lot of similar color in varying hues, but the lines and textures stand out.  Now just so you know I am not a knowledgeable person, telling you all sorts of great wisdom about color and composition, lines, and viewpoints.  Just my opinions and no real connoisseur.  So you can count this all for NaNoWriMor, right?  Anyways I like this picture of a fountain in Philadelphia.

Color and contrast can bring brilliance to life, but it is not something I think about much when I out and about looking at the world.  Sometimes things that are there all the time suddenly stand out when we look at them in a new way.  I was at a meeting last evening where we were taking about trying to fund something that people deem important and necessary, but has been struggling to raise the funds needed to continue over a long period.  When just asked if one feels the resources and support of the service, people agree that it is important and necessary, but then in the everyday journey of things they forget about it and are unaware of the opportunities it provides, or don't take time to participate and support as the blur of obligations and life overtake.  I think the vagueness of this statement may make it more confusing to you but the details probably don't relate to you, so just know that it is easy to miss opportunities that around us everyday when we get caught up in the rut and busyness of life.

Keep your eyes open, see the colors around you, look at things differently, and watch for God, because he is there, and when we seek we will see Him at work, and I pray that we will join Him.