Naturally Occurring Gray
Another take on the Globetrotter’s November Challenge!
When I first took on the challenge of the color gray for the Globetrotter’s November Challenge, I was stymied. So, I ended up just putting a black-and-white filter on some of my favorite photos to see how it changed them.
But then, as I went through my photos for other posts, I came across many things that are the color gray naturally. This stimulated my thoughts about this popular but neutral color.
Fungi — gray? You bet! I found a mushroom called Old Man of the Woods this summer on the trails near our house in Wisconsin. It is a very unusual gray-patterned mushroom! I’ll be on the lookout for this one again when foraging arrives in the spring.
Farther Afield
This year, in particular, I saw a lot of gray wildlife. From mussels growing en masse on a California beach to the elephants in the UNESCO World Heritage site-designated Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria were gray animals.
I think my fascination with gray started years ago. We even saw a sleek sea lion (maybe, a monk seal) catching a nap on Poipu Beach on the island of Kauai in 2013. He’s enjoying the sun on the smooth, creamy-colored beach sand.
Fog always appears gray to me, perhaps because it has color behind what it shrouds. We only saw a couple of days of fog in Europe this fall. One was in Passau Germany, where fog shrouded the river and hillside. It cleared by noon.
The other was in Wertheim Germany when the Castle was covered in a dense fog. It gave off a spooky atmosphere with a very gray sky perhaps conjuring up the long history of the Rhine Gorge. Gray connotes age and the past, don’t you think?
Some years ago, I even wrote a poem about gray.
Gray, Oh, Grey
Gray — it sounds like an ice-cold winter sky. But it is also the warm ash we use to make our toes feel dry.
Gray can be spelled differently for you and I, a or e, it makes no difference to me, as gray cannot lie.
Gray is amongst the newest trends, with chevrons, and paisleys, and houndstooth checks that all blend.
Grey is a soft pussy willow, blooming in spring Ushering in all the other brighter colors that sing.
Gray is a fog, mental or real, actually, neither has any appeal.
Gray is a color that never ends. Endless, infinity, and boring sometimes, too!
Oh grey, oh, gray, why, oh why, do I seem to like you?
© Carol Labuzzetta, 2018
Sometimes the sky, water, and land even look gray. We saw this in California traveling the Pacific Coastal Highway this summer. When the clouds rolled in everything had a gray cast.
The world looks gray after a snowstorm. Any color is obscured by the snow which also changes as it lays on trees and and pavement, making the white precipitation look gray. Nature’s color palette includes gray, especially in a Wisconsin winter.
Our road (above) and yard (below) in Wisconsin after a snowstorm. We still walked every day in the snow. It was beautiful but we did plan a winter getaway that helped us escape the gray — the St. Thomas, USVI, where azure blue waters, green hills, and colorful roosters await.
Volcanic ash, stones, and Silversword plants that decorate the slopes of Haleakala are all gray. Yes, even in Hawaii there is naturally occurring gray.
I think what makes gray so ubiquitous is that it has many forms and shades. It is a color I like, for it reminds me of all the other colors that make gray stand out as something different.
In my initial photo, there’s a remnant of a windmill on St. Thomas — not naturally occurring gray but certainly graying with time — just as we all do.
With the month coming to a close, I encourage you to check out all the articles sent to Globetrotters as part of this challenge. Here are two to get you started:
Vickey posts some monochrome shots from India, a place to which I have never been.
and this one by Oksana Kukurudza's Sunflowers Rarely Break
My initial gray challenge post offers a different perspective than this article. You can check it out, here.
Why do you appreciate the color gray and where have you seen it occurring naturally?
