28 October 2011

shades of autumn: red

The beautiful blogs Bumbles & Light, Live & Love Out Loud and Project Alicia are hosting a photography challenge based around the shades of autumn. You can find out all the details by clicking on the button below.
Shades of Autumn Photo Challenge

At only 70-ish miles from the equator there's no traditional northern hemisphere change in the seasons here in Singapore. I thought this might be an interesting exercise in sharing the shades of a tropical Asian autumn; lush, vibrant and dripping with sweat colour.

Red is quite simply THE colour here. It's steeped in symbolism, enshrined in the national flag, and the country is occasionally even called "the red dot" (referring to the fact that on maps where city populations are displayed as proportionally-sized red dots, the entire country of Singapore is hidden by it's own dot). So here are some of the reds to be found in Singapore this autumn... with some pinks creeping in, I can't resist the red/pink combo.

lanterns in Chinatown

the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

the wonderful Rochor complex

incense outside the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple

chillies in Little India

a little corner in my favourite little corner on the whole island, Papa Palheta coffee roasting house

These last three don't exactly meet the "contain 50% of the colour of the week" rule - okay they don't meet it at all - but red is certainly the focus (and they're my favourites of the bunch!).

mid-autumn lantern in the gloaming

faded glory - not only once red, but once neon too!

look, relak lah!

See my green, yellow and orange photos from previous weeks!

p.s. I decided to go square with most of these photos, cropping in round the most interesting aspects, purely because this blogger template (with photos in a long list) doesn't seem to do a mix of landscape & portrait shots any justice. Even at the "large" size, rectangular pictures are so much smaller and have much less impact than square, while "extra large" landscapes blow the margins and looks daft. Do you know what I mean? I quite like square pictures, but sometimes the composition suffers (it would never have worked in my last photo here) so I don't want to do it all the time. While I'm loathed to start tinkering with my layout already, if anyone has any recommendations for a better blogger template (wrt displaying photos) this novice would really value any help you can give! (for example - how do you get that lovely layout with a strapline menu across the top, under the banner, thus eliminating the sidebar?)

Photobucket

35 comments:

  1. Your photos are awesome! I love that they are so different!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the red architecture in the background of the first shot, the incense, the lantern against the sky and that little red car steals my heart!
    Carletta's Captures

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love your captures of red in the architecture around Chinatown.. thanks for dropping by my blog this week.

    ReplyDelete
  4. thanks for sharing a red sneak-a-peak to Singapore! and thanks for visiting. See u next week!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wonderful red captures - love those lanterns and the incense sticks.

    ReplyDelete
  6. love the last photo. are you blogging in draft? there are so many more possibilitys there. i wish i could be more help.

    ReplyDelete
  7. @ Lori ann - last one's my fave too! I'm such a novice at this blog thing, I have no idea what I'm doing really... I just customised a 'simple' template (because all the others looked too fussy on the particular day that I began this on a whim!), but now I'm finding it rather limiting and don't know what to do about it. :-/

    ReplyDelete
  8. The faded glory picture is wonderful - it's exactly the type of thing I love (and would display as art). I love the incense sticks one too :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your photos are so interesting....love them! There are so many amazing photos shared in this Shades of Autumn contest. Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Barefoot mama

    ReplyDelete
  10. After Lou's beautiful comments about you on Dom's blog - I had to pop over. Delighted I did, you have a wonderful place here :-)

    ReplyDelete
  11. This is my favorite color theme by far that you have done. I love all the red you found !!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Those are great. I love the last one ~ great shot.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have noticed that a lot of blogger seem to start off in Blogger then progress to wordpress so might be worth asking someone with a wordpress blog about it?
    I am annoyed by the lack of indexing capabilities in Blogger although it may just be that I still don't know what I am doing.
    In fact, you might be better just doing your own website from scratch - I'm sure you could do that.

    Love the reds. I really love the contrast of what you are using for Autumn colours out there and what you might be doing here.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thank you pinkunidine, barefoot mama and Brownieville girl - I'm touched by your lovely comments. DaeneIT - I'm with you on the last one, it's my computer desktop - 'nuff said (but I AM biased by the little person in the picture!)

    Swanski THANK YOU! I thought this week might be a bit weak, so I'm really chuffed like like them.

    PDNFTA pfff! website from scratch! I know my limitations (for the moment at least!). I really hope that these ladies run the same challenge next year. Not only is it a totally amazing group of people, but I'll have a completely different environment next year (possibly more of a challenge too, everything here is like a rainbow!)

    ReplyDelete
  15. These are incredible - love all the surprising and unexpected red...especially the lanterns and asian buildings.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Gorgeous photos! Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment at Lilahbility.

    I use a different template, but I was able to expand the margins so as to use the "extra large" setting without it cutting into the sidebar. Don't know if that's exactly what you're looking for, but it could help in the meantime while you figure out the fancier stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Your pictures are always so creative and interesting. I always enjoy coming over to your blog!

    Alita

    ReplyDelete
  18. Your photos are wonderful. The pinks/reds of the incense is beautifully captured in your picture. I love that last image, too.

    ReplyDelete
  19. BEAUTIFUL photos this week! That last one is awesome :) but seriously I can't decide which I like best - the chillies, the car or the last one with the chairs!

    As for the blogger template, it's been a while since I had blogger and I know they've changed things, but is there some way of making the width of your blog larger so that you can fit in pictures? And honestly, I went for a single column layout (no sidebar) on wordpress just so I could fit pictures in :)

    Thanks for taking part again in the Shades of Autumn Photo Challenge!

    ReplyDelete
  20. these photos are lovely. thanks for the peek into life in Singapore. The colors are so vibrant. I love the photo of the apartments with the laundry drying out the windows and also the red chilies.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Such a great variety to your reds. I love the chilies.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Love these!!! Great seeing autumn in another part of the world :)

    ReplyDelete
  23. Another fabulous collection of photos! I really look forward to seeing your unique photos each week in the Shades of Autumn Photo Challenge. I just can't wait to see what beautiful shots you'll come up with next week when we move on to purple!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Beautiful, love the colorful incense, and the gorgeous chilies!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Stunning captures! I love 'the red dot' story - makes a lot of sense. I think you are looking to add 'pages' to your blog? I find short, wide photographs fill the space nicely (not exactly square).

    Thank you for joining October's Post Of The Month Club! XOLaura

    ReplyDelete
  26. Love the photos. The colors are all stunning and you captured the essence of each in a different way. Fabulous.

    I'm visiting from Post of the Month Club, HH UK. Thanks for posting there

    ReplyDelete
  27. This is so clever! Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  28. These photos are so stunning!! So glad I found your cute blog, I'm following you now :)

    ReplyDelete
  29. Psst! Congratulations on being selected for our Top Pics of the Week during "red" week in the Shades of Autumn Photo Challenge. Rebecca, Alicia and I loved your photos!

    ReplyDelete
  30. I'm chuffed to bits to have been chosen as one of the favourites in "red" week - especially as the photo that was selected is the only one with my little chicken in it!

    ReplyDelete
  31. congrats on your winning photo!

    ReplyDelete
  32. how exciting to have your photograph chosen! and exciting for me to connect with someone living in Singapore. i love your photography style and look forward to reading more posts
    Helen

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...