Project Spectrum

I was looking at the blog of my friend Mrs Pao a couple of weeks ago and she mentioned something called ProjectSpectrum.  And being a nosy person I had a look at it.

ProjectSpectrum  is an online creative project.  Each month from May to November has been given a colour and participants are invited to do something creative relating to the colour of the month and to post a photo of it online. So, as I seem to have a bit of time on my hands at the moment and in the interests of optimism (never know where these things might lead) and becoming myself again (hopefully that is a good idea) I thought I would give it a go. 

Being a technology challenged person (although I am improving - note the optimism) I found it a little difficult to follow what exactly it was I should be doing with regard to signing up and posting my creative attempts.  But I decided a little thing like that wouldn't stop me because by the time I had something creative to post I might well have worked out what to do.

May was red.  As I came to it late, there only being two weeks of May left, I decided on photography as a creative subject and went out a couple of afternoons in Canterbury and Maidstone photographing things red - as artistically as I could manage.

I had a lovely time.  I wandered around Canterbury with my camera and noticed all sorts of things I probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise.  I even went into a couple of shops and asked if I could photograph some of their red items for an art project I was doing (that made me feel very, very arty).  And - I found a missing postbox!  Well, actually, I am probably the only one who thought it was missing.   At the bottom of Station Road West there used to be a double postbox.  A couple of years ago, for some annoying reason, it was removed which miffed me no end as I used to use it regularly.  And thanks to Project Spectrum I found out where it was put.  It now resides at the entrance of the car park half way up Station Road West.  I have walked up that road, past that car park and thus straight past the postbox at least twice a month for the last eighteen months - and I never noticed it.  And I  would probably have carried on walking past it twice a month for however long if I hadn't been out looking for objects red. 

It will come as no surprise to anyone that a lot of my red based photographs relate to food.  I didn't realise how many food wrappers are red and quite how many signs are red either.

Here are a few of the photographs I took in Canterbury and an afternoon I spent in  Maidstone visiting PR for lunch

Not overly artistically taken I know but if you had asked me - I would have said the ASK sign was green.  Observation skills - nil points.  Anyway their pizza's are nice and I love their profiteroles because they have ice-cream inside instead of cream.

Not sure if I wish I could wear shoes like this  or not hmmmm...

And here comes the food...........

This didn't come out quite how I wanted.  The top right hand corner was supposed to show more stall so that it looked like a hill of cherries.  By the time I had examined the photo and decided to go back for another shot someone had bought a whole wodge of cherries and the whole display had changed - some people are so inconsiderate - couldn't they see art was taking place here....... 

and some flowers

I feel these should have  a title but I don't know what to call them other than 'red flowers in cellophane'.  Umm creative title brain cell needs a little work then.

And some good advice, where would we be without the good advice

 

AND



Ok, so my photographs were more observational than artistic but it was a nice thing to do and that can't be bad.  I think it would be a nice project to give the kids over the school holidays as well as I found an awful lot of red just around the house - it will keep  them occupied for a while and it's cheap.  

By the end of May I still hadn't quite worked out if I had to do something to actually join this project or where to properly post my creative redness but as face book was one of the  posting options I posted a photo there.  I hadn't ever posted a photo to face book before (I have enough trouble commenting) so it doesn't have a caption because I wasn't sure what to do. But now I know.  This interweb business is a great learning curve.   Also nobody has got back to me saying 'you can't do that, you're not a member' so I am assuming   what I have done is alright and  am moving on to June.  Which is green.  Watch this space.