When I at first read this prompt for Hannas Spotted Photo Challenge I wasn’t overly excited. Yellow is probably my least favorite color if I am being honest. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t want to live in a world without yellow as a color but I do not own any yellow besides pens and paint I think. Oh ok the occasional book comes in a yellow cover. However, I knew I had one image I wanted to include (which didn’t make the cut but will appear in July’s TOY theme) and started the hunt for more. In the end I did come up with more yellow then I would have expected and to stay in the self imposed five images rule this is what I am showing you.
The header image is just beautiful. There isn’t a big back story to that one besides I did my occasional photo walk around the down town apartment and I am always looking for artistically cool stuff. I love blue apartment buildings and then search for that pop of color. Yellow and blue are opposites on the color wheel – who remembers that from school? – and therefore a strong one. Here is a little insight to the advertising world: strong brand logos often play with opposites on the color wheel: IKEA – blue/yellow, LA Lakers purple-yellow, Visa – blue, yellow – as you can see yellow in logos is prominent. Other color combos have flitted my mind right now as I am focused on yellow.
A Yellow Watering Can
I lived sixteen years near one of the bigger cemeteries in Berlin. The first time I noticed the watering cans was during a snowy morning when the row of green watering cans were all partly snowed in hanging on a bar with bicycle locks. I then paid more attention to the cans. Often times the watering cans are hidden around the graves itself and people came up with the most interesting spots. I started a long term project photographing hidden water cans. There are some fun shots. This yellow can is one.
Two things are interesting here and apparently specifically to Germany (?). Each person tending a grave has their own watering can. Many people leave it on the grounds but hide it away in nearby bushes and trees or lock it to fences and poles with a bicycle lock or hide it behind the tomb stone. I know a few – mainly country – cemeteries where there a few communal water cans but other than that it is common to bring your own.
The other thing is that watering cans are mainly green in Germany. It is really hard to find a different color. In my years of specifically looking for it I have only ever seen a few yellow ones and a pink one. But I cannot remember having seen a blue or a red one.
photo taken January 16th, 2017 at Georgen Parochial II Cemetery, Berlin Germany
Yellow Mailboxes
After a visit at my sister’s which is about a 4-5 hour drive and 560km away we added a few days in a seaside – or so I thought – town Bremen to explore it. Bremen is mainly known for a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm “Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten” (English: The Town Musicians of Bremen) and its old city being UNESCO World Heritage. Since we are loose trying to tick of some more of those sites we figured it was a fun town to add to our traveling list. It was fun extend weekend however I was a little underwhelmed. The city is – aside from the old town – not pretty. And it is not as I have falsely thought on the North Sea but at a river – which is also rather industrial and not really nice to walk along. So overall I may still coin it as ugliest city. Which is not true because the old town is gorgeous. Anyway, we did find these little street with some artists galleries and quirky shops and here I spotted the mailboxes. Always happy to see these pops of color specially when they are in geometric order and have great lines and angles.
photo taken August 30th, 2019 in Bremen, Germany
A yellow Island
One random morning during a vacation in Croatia I took a photo walk. Just me and my camera and I headed out trying to explore the place we stayed. It was a suburb of Dubrovnik. It had some very early 90’s socialist charm, brute buildings, ugly apartment houses and yet there was a Beaty to it. I ended up not photographing much about that and instead enjoyed the stroll of along the coast and the crashing waves. until I came around a bend and saw this rocky island with a lighthouse on it. I spend almost and hour photographing waves breaking with the island in the back. I can tell you nothing more about this picture besides that I felt very centered, content and happy in the moment it was taken.
photo taken May 7th, 2016 in Dubrovnik, Croatia
A Yellow Triangle
This photo was taken somewhere in Berlin. I only have a hazy memory and wouldn’t promise to find the spot again. At the time I was taking a nine month photography class at the community college that had three main topics – portrait, architecture and people. I think here we just started on architecture. We would get weekly homework to go on excursions and photograph things which we would then show only our weekly meetings and discuss, critique and learn from. Also usually added with some theoretical topics. I really learned a lot during the course but mainly I continuously went out photographing – which always helps developing a craft. At the end we had an exhibition in the community college. I was so proud and my sister and parents came. I made my godchild a model too for one photo project where we had to recreate a famous photo. I took the moon landing one. My godchild wither her little bike and a flag, her helmet infant of drained fishing lake that look surreal.
As you know by now visiting regularly I tend to do artistic shots with shapes, angles lines and texture and usually very detailed so it is not immediately visible what you look at. Back during the photo class I actually started another instagram account I called streetcrops that showcases these detailed shots of buildings in urban spaces. I also call it urban color blocking.
photo taken January 24th, 2017 in Berlin, Germany
And so you have my top five picks of yellow things. What is your favorite photo? Tell me about watering flowers on graves were you live? Have you been to Croatia? What’s your favorite shape – circle, triangle, square?
8 comments
Urban crops, what a cool concept!
My favorite photo is the mailboxes, or the last one withall the angles, but also, loved the watering can story and the memories it evokes in me. I think my dad’s watering can was yellow and very similar to the one in the picture. Maybe it was a garden watering can, or was it used indoors too? Hmm. 💛
Beautiful photos, thanks for sharing Tobia!
Oh that is so fun that your dad used to have yellow watering can. Happy to hear that picture invoked those memories.
I love urbancrops. One day I want to make a memory game out of my photos.
I really enjoy the photo challenge. Thank you so much for the prompts.
I love yellow because it’s so cheerful! I really love the combination of yellow and blue, so my favorite one has to be the first one. But they’re all wonderful. I have never seen hidden watering cans in our cemetery. Our cemetery is set up with a little vase on each grave, so we put in cut flowers and pour in some water from a bottle. I have never been to Croatia. My favorite shape is a circle.
We do have the vases too at the cemetery and often times a well where you can get water. But usually our graves have planted plants and flowers too.
I think a circle is my favorite shape too.
For not liking yellow, you have great photos of it! I do think yellow is best as an accent color.
That is what I a was thinking. I was positively surprised. Mhm my favorite accent color used to be a dirty purple but I am not sure it is now.
I love the contrast of the yellow with the other colors that you found. My favorite is the header photo, with the blue background. So pretty.
California is so dry, there are not a lot of places to hide a watering can in our cemeteries. Few trees, few bushes, and you can’t plant anything on the graves themselves. I love the idea of it though, very charming.
I commented on your last post, about white foods for a white party, but I don’t see my comment. Maybe it went to your spam?
That is why I find cemeteries so interesting. They tell you something about the landscape, the culture and the people. It’s very common in Europe to have planted graves at least north and middle Europe if you go towards the Mediterranean it’s lots of rocks and marble and little closets. There are notmany plants and hardly anything planted. I remember going to the cemetery Hemingway was buried and was shocked that everything looked the same and that you would drive on the cemetery to the grave. Unthinkable for someone from Europe.
The other comment seems to be lost. No Spam an nowhere else. So sad. I really do need the white food suggestions.