This is another assignment designed to refresh your thinking and boost your powers of observation. The assignment is simple, head out on the town and look for interesting compositions that somehow embrace the colour purple. Shop windows, festivals, street banners, drugstore shelves, produce vendors, and cosmetics counters are just some of the places where purple might be expected to rear its royal head. And if, along the way, opportunities in other shades present themselves, snap them up and add them to your growing portfolio.
The following examples came from a trip to the Kansai region of Japan.
Rural Japan is a sheer delight not only because the crushing crowds avoid “inaka” as if it were radioactive. Much in the traditional way of life is preserved here, carrying on largely out of the step with the beguiling modernity of the hyperurban metropolises most people prefer to live in. Pictured here, a thicket of feral cosmos in Nosé, Osaka Prefecture.
A trio of typical Japanese shoppers apparently “Love Here”. All purple prose aside, what I love is that a nationwide department store would earmark millions for a promotional campaign — including this multistory malignant horror — and blow it on some basic English grammar. You spend here! Their designers even mucked up the usage of commas. Sheesh! I hope they weren’t former students of mine.
Glistening octopi at Uondana Fish Market in Akashi, Japan take on a purple hue after boiling.
“Asa gao” or morning glory take on many colours in Japan including these in Nara City, sporting a range of violets, blues, purples and ants.
All photographs were taken by Brian Grover. To browse more images visit my photo gallery here: Brian Grover Photography.
