This was a lucky find while out doing errands. The bold lines and bright color were a match to Angus McDonald's captures of bright colors.
The bright and bold colors attracted my attention immediately. But how does it make a connection to keeping a bright outlook in bleak poverty? Admitingly, many will not follow why I submitted by the visual cues of the picture alone unless I explain what made me think of this as a slightly different take of New Happiness.
It made me think of the movie Endless Summer where two drifters travel across the globe to look for the perfect wave to surf. That, in turn made me think of Kalaupapa on Moloka'i.
The book Moloka'i has the main character Rachel Kalama take up surfing as a temporary escape from her disease. Surfing made her forget and feel alive. Kalaupapa was a place of exile for Hansen's disease (also known as leprosy) patients. It was a horrible place of suffering and death until Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope brought attention to the poor living conditions. Father Damien made major improvements including building homes, churches and coffins and arranging for medical services and funding from Honolulu.
I remember reading more about the history where some residents took up surfing. It was their Endless Summer to search for New Happiness upon the blue waters and golden sun bringing light & warmth- It was a way to forget their disease and feel alive and free.
Congratulations on the blue.
What an amzing background story - very disturbing of course, but very powerful to go with your image. Thanks for writing it.
Congratulations, Chrystyne - a wonderful image for the blue. I enjoyed reading your thought process but didn't really need it to give a high score to this wonderful find, perfectly photographed and presented. WTG!!
Oh Wow! Chrystyne! You bloody beauty! Congratulations on your exceedingly well deserved Blue. As you know, I've only been popping in and out lately, so it is a treat to see this on the front page on one of my visits. Yay!
Very different - I was almost tempted to score this lower, because it's decidedly different from the entire point of "New Happiness" (to show happiness in poverty, and these are clearly not from the impoverished!)
With that being said - this is an insanely striking photograph. You would have gotten one of my rare 10's if only those boards weren't tilted wonky.
Overall I like the color and composition of this image. It appears that symmetry was part of your image capture, so if I may, I see two things that I would have tried to fix by moving the (skis?(Endless Summer surfboards like the movie?). One, the middle ski could have been shifted to the right a little. Two, the one on the right seems to be just a little higher than the one on the left and definitely higher than the one in the middle. Would have been a little better if they were all the same height or maybe just the outer two were the same height, or maybe even stair stepped. I would like to have seen them all the same height myself.
Endless Summer
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