Capture the Colour Photoblogger Contest

Capture the Colour is a photoblogger contest sponsored by TravelSupermarket.com. They have challenged the blogger community to each enter five photographs that capture the five colours; Blue, Green, Yellow, White and Red. You don’t have to enter all five colors, but if you do you are eligible for the grand prize which is £2,000 (US approximately $3,100) cash prize to spend on traveling. Each of the colour category winners will receive an iPad! And they ask you to nominate five other blogger photographers to the competition. My nomination list is at the bottom of this page.

So I though I would take my chance and started looking through my catelog for an image for each colour. This is where the trouble started; how to choose just five! After hours of deliberation, making selections, changing my mind, asking for help from Randy, I’ve finally selected the following five images. I hope you like them and of course, comments are always welcome.

Schooling Fish Swirl around a Diver in the Blue Water at the Liberty Wreck, Tulamben, Bali

Blue

Blue had to be an underwater shot. As a Northern California SCUBA diver clear blue water is quite a treat for me. When underwater the water blocks the red light so everything looks blue. Even with strobes firing the only color besides blue that was captured in this photo is the bright orange of the strobe. This photo was taken when we were on the Indonesian island of Bali, at the Liberty Wreck. This is a very popular dive site due to the wreck which is mostly intact and for the marine life that lives around the wreck like this swirling school of fish. Here Randy waits in the blue for just the right moment to photograph this swirling school of fish.

Read more about SCUBA diving in Bali and Komodo.

Morning Mist on the Kinabatangan River, Sabah Malaysia, Borneo

Green

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much green as when Randy and I went to Borneo. We went to Malaysian Borneo, to Sabah and spent a few days on an island diving and then spent the next week and a half visiting with orangutans, elephants, monkeys, birds, bugs, snakes and lizards just to name a few creatures. We went in a boat from Sandakan up the Kinabatangan River to Sukau where we stayed in an eco lodge there in the jungle. The Kinabatangan is really long and wide and is surrounded by green jungle and palm plantations. In the night mist rises from the river so thick that early in the morning all you can see is a shadow of the green jungle through the fog. The sounds of the jungle are normally deafening but somehow the river fog mutes the sounds of the birds and animals making the river seem almost quiet and so peaceful.

Read more about our adventure in Borneo.

Yellow Lightning Strikes the Escalante River, Utah

Yellow

For the color yellow we travel back to Utah, driving along Scenic Hwy 12 through the Escalante National Forest. We were traveling in Utah in October so most trees had finished their spectacular fall colors and dropped their leaves. But in some of the protected valleys along the rivers and creeks there was still some color with red and yellow leaves showing here and there as we traveled through the southern part of the state from one National park to another. Here we are looking down from Hwy 12 at the Escalante River its trees providing a bright contrasting yellow like a lightning bolt flashing down the valley.

Read more about traveling the National Parks of Southern Utah.

Brightly Colored Photographers Shoot Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, California

White

One of my favorite local (California) places to travel is to Yosemite National Park. Yosemite is beautiful no matter the time of year but in winter is magical with sparkling white snow and ice. A couple of years ago I went up with some friends arriving at the tail end of a storm.  We just barely made it to Camp Curry using our vehicle’s 4wd to get there over slippery roads. The next morning it was still snowing but slowly the sky began to clear and we headed out to photograph the snow covered rock walls, meadows and river. When I took this shot I had been in the meadow shooting half dome with a bunch of other photographers and then started walking back towards the car. I turned around to take one more look and was amused by the contrast made by the clean white snow and all the colorful coats of the photographers. I had to take a shot.

Read more and see more images from Yosemite.

Red Rock Canyons Dusted with Snow at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah

Red

Randy and I had never been to Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah and even though we wanted to drive the loop that went all the way through the park decided we had better not. It was later in the day than we had planned when we arrived and it was starting to snow, and at 10,000 feet Cedar Breaks was getting a lot of snow. At the visitor’s center we jumped out of the car and went to the viewpoint. The canyons were beautiful! The brick red of the canyons were already dusted with a healthy bit of the first snow of the year. It was freezing, the snow was coming down and it was getting dark, so we both took a couple of pictures, swapped picture taking with another couple and jumped back into the warmth of the car, heading back down the road to Hwy 12 and Bryce Canyon.

Read more about traveling the National Parks of Southern Utah.

My Five Nominations:

Again, after some deliberation I would like to nominate the following five blogger/photographers to participate in Capture the Colour. They may have been nominated already, but I read and admire all of their blogs and photographs.

Idelish
Jeremy is a great photographer and has been doing some underwater photography which of course is one of my favorite things. He and Shirlene have had some wonderful travels!

Wanderlass
One of the first blogs that I began to follow, and written by another SCUBA diver and underwater photographer. Lillian is from the Philippines but has been on a round-the-world trip where she had many exciting adventures including SCUBA diving with hundreds of hammerhead sharks!

Foot Tracker
I’m going to include a blogger/photographer that I met at TBEX in June. Annie is also from Northern California, living in San Francisco and blogs about San Francisco and about her travels in Japan and Taiwan. One of the things I love about Annie’s blog is her photos of food. They make me hungry!

My Itchy Travel Feet
Donna writes and husband Alan takes the photographs for this blog on Baby Boomer travel. As a boomer myself I find Donna’s articles interesting and useful with wonderful pictures accompanying the articles. It was really nice to meet Donna in person at TBEX.

Two 4 Travel
I’m going to nominate a blog written by Laura and Claire who I also met at TBEX. They were having lunch at a table behind me and I heard them talking about diving and had to introduce myself. Although young they have had some great experiences around the world!

Good luck to all of you if you choose to enter the competition!

Kathy