Travel Time: Color Inspiration

In April, I had the pleasure of traveling to London, one of my favorite cities, to attend a Pantone View Color Planner forecast meeting. Many of the windows in London’s shopping areas are indicative of current fashion and beauty trends, styles, color, and therefore offer excellent opportunities for photo taking.  Often the glare from the windows mirrors the architecture of surrounding buildings, adding another dimension to the images.      

As my timing was just prior to the coronation of King Charles, some of the windows played homage to the event.  Two of my favorites were a vintage multi-colored neon sign that proclaimed “God Save the Queen” while another displayed irreverent and cheeky (as the Brits would say) smiley faces surrounding the royal crown.

When perusing the shops and the windows in London, I am always on the lookout for the colors that we saw in the fashion forecast that I do for Pantone every season.  They might not be spot-on, perhaps a slight variation of the 10 top colors and 4  basics that I project will hit the shops and the streets, but always very much in tune with our predictions that are taken from the fashion collections that we review ahead of the season.

In May, I flew to a destination that was quite the opposite of the cool climes of London: the sunny shores of Maui.  This trip was a long-awaited relaxing vacation that produced some truly colorful images of flora, fish, and foliage.  Amongst my favorite color memories are the gorgeous purples, reds, and hot pinks of plumeria, hibiscus, and birds of paradise, the under-sea blues, a pink-tailed triggerfish, and the ubiquitous roaming Maui chickens colored in orange, rust, teal, and red.  And if you look very closely, you will see a tiny florescent green lizard peering out from between the complementary red foliage.

While on the island and lunching at the fabulous Four Seasons Hotel, I was reminded of a talk that I did for the Society of American Florists a few years ago in Maui. The gorgeous floral arrangements adorned the reception areas and many other spaces in the hotel. There was an abundance of florals, both in the hotel and in the surrounding areas, a magical and colorful sight to behold.

My advice to the attendees in our training programs is to always be camera-ready for any photo-ops!!  Even if a colorful opportunity to snap a shot is not something you might immediately need, there could be a slot for that image in a future presentation, in social media, on your website, or in compiling examples for a client’s project.  If there is something colorfully appealing about a display, a shop window, people on the street, or nature, snap it. It helps you stay creative, and engaged. It’s all about color!!  

Many thanks to my talented fellow traveler and photographer, Jessica Hall, for her amazing Maui images.

Happy travels!

Lee