Colour

Seeing different colours to everyone through my eyes. Being colour deficient grade 1 or formerly known as colour blind. How do we know that the colours we see are different? A green for you, compared to a green for me. Like snowflakes, maybe all colours look subtly different for everyone, all colours individual, personal, unique. For colour deficient people it is the combination of colours which is vital, the reds and greens together that can’t be deciphered. It is difficult to define how the colours look, can descriptions really define how we visualise colour? The power of words mixed with that of sight. As a teenager I always wanted to work for the BBC, be a production manager, camera person, presenter. Anything. My colour blindness put a stop to that. Scoring well in the personality tests, but being a danger on live TV, pressing the wrong button. The same for being a bomb disposal expert. My dreams dashed. I love taking colour photographs, the subtle shades of a sky gently caressing into the sea, the range of blues mesmeric, fading between each other. The pastel pinks, yellows, oranges of the summer sky early evening, when the intense sunshine of the day gradually dissipates, painting ever softer pictures. Artificial, neon, gaudy, bright, defined images have a greater direct impact. Manmade, starkly contrasting, great definition between strips of bright colour, lacking the subtlety which nature provides. Countries have different colour palettes, a general hue which pervades everything. Thailand is green, a vibrant aqua marine. India, dusty, orange, happy, artificial. Portugal yellow, houses painted in a range of colours but the overriding feel is ochre, egg, sun dazzlingly reflecting from windows and bunting, a simple, cheap way of bringing places to life. Bunting means festivity, party, celebration and colour. Simple pieces of vari-coloured cloth strung together across streets, hanging from buildings and lamps. In Porto the pavements are glassy, reflecting sunny, slippery when wet, forming black and white patterns that lead the eye to statues, monuments, buildings. Artwork formed on the floor, arranged by local councils with aesthetics in mind. In the UK you get some bitumen, potholes randomly temporarily filled with what seems like dark grey custard. A temporary ugly fix. No grand plan other than to try and solve some immediate issue. Doorways in Spain and Portugal beautifully painted or coloured, blank canvases ready to expand the beauty of their worlds. In England, some plastic, practical light grey job. Non transformable, impossible to paint. Presentation of sweet delicacies in numerous bakeries, a few slices of old Victoria sponge or rows of varied, perfectly formed pastries engaging visual and taste sensations, equally liable to lead to heart problems. Porto is completely friendly, containing an anarchistic edge but engagement, showing off their city, extreme pride in their produce and lived worlds. Happy to discuss the infinite details of the making of a rabbit stew or the depth and taste variances of 5, 10, 20 year old port wine. Porto is punk which has evolved, a socialist enclave with usual capitalist realities, a city with a village vibe. Obrigado.