I find orange a wonderfully warm and joyful colour. I love red, but that sometimes can be a little cool or harsh. Yellow is fabulously uplifting but for me it is a definite spring/summer colour and I am definitely not a spring/summer person.
Orange is rust and the beauty of fire; it is the colour of thousands of vibrant flowers; it is my favourite late afternoon autumn sunlight on a warm terracotta wall. With its counterpart, blue, it really pops as part of the most successful pairing of complementary colours.
As mentioned in previous musings about colour, orange is no stranger to disagreement. Is it yellow? Red? Brown? That might depend on your mood or your outlook. For some it is school dinner carrots, for others it’s golden syrup pudding. I know which I prefer.
Native Americans associate orange with kinship and it is the preferred hue for Hindu swamis and Buddhist monks. It has associations with Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving (is this because of the colour of pumpkins?), and is often regarded as a positive and optimistic colour. There are some who would say it is merely the part of the spectrum that exists between 585 and 620 nanometres. #FFA500 to them!
Orange is also the favourite colour of fellow photographer and Flickr friend Jennifer König. She is moving house and that’s why I’ve chosen orange today. And if you’re wondering about the title, you may be too young to remember H R Pufnstuf!
I’ll let Wassily Kandinsky have the final word:
Orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow.
I have curated a Flickr gallery to accompany this post.
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Paula Bailey 