Search me!

click photo to enlarge

The power of the internet is immense, and it's generally a force for good. Learning how to use it to your advantage is important, and to do this you must master the skills of searching. My search techniques have improved enormously over the years, but sometimes I wonder if I'm still a complete novice!

In one of my earliest posts I wrote briefly about the power of colour, and referred to a painting, "Le Fort d'Antibes" by Nicolas de Stael (1914-1955). The artist painted a number of views of this fort by the sea in the south of France, but the one I had in mind used a single spot of red paint to immense effect. At the time the only image of this painting that I could find was on the cover of a Moody Blues album called "La Mer". So, with today's photograph, in its small way, again demonstrating the impact that a tiny amount of intense colour can have, I thought to look for an image of de Stael's painting. Several months down the line from my last search, I reasoned, there must be a decent copy to be found. Fat chance! I spent more than half an hour searching and all I could come up with was this tiny image!

So there you have it. I was going to ramble on at greater length about the significance that small amounts of colour can have in images, but I've run out of energy with all that searching!! If anyone finds a better version of this excellent, and obviously neglected, painting please let me know.

Make what you will of my photograph - a block of Lancaster University student flats on the canal in the city of Lancaster. I liked it because the spots of red gave life to the drab grey/brown and blues, and the reflection was pretty good. The shot was taken with a wide zoom, and the final image received minimal processing. Incidentally, the very observant will recognise it as the building seen below the bridge in the post, "Bridge 98" below.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen