Red, white and blue in pictures

Photography inspired by the Dutch flag

A lot of countries have flags in the colors red, white and blue. The USA, the Netherlands, France, the UK, Russia – to name a few. Flags are an offspring of heraldry. Every color had a specific meaning in ancient heraldry.
Drawing: the Dutch flag

In medieval times colors and flags were a necessity to distinguish one armored knight from the other. Only seven colors were allowed and they all had a black and white ‘translation’. For instance blue was also indicated by a pattern of horizontal lines and red by vertical lines. This variation was used in wax seals.

If you have read this other article of mine about photography – looking through the square hole – you have seen that I love thematic photography. In this article I combine those themes with the colors red, white and blue.

Blazonry
A modern variation of the heraldic colors are the red and the blue states in USA election time.

In these series I selected 3 pictures in the colors red, white and blue for each subject. Some are bright colors, others are more saturated. I call them “powdery”.

Glassware

Still lives and windows

Do you know the still lives of Morandi? If you don’t you really should try to have a look at them. Either in reality or in reproductions. I have admired his work for a long, long time and still am not tired of looking at it.