I always knew the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador was a colourful place but when my friend David sent me a link to the province’s tourism commercial, I was stunned! It is a gorgeous video and it inspired me to research more of Newfoundland and Labrador’s incredible colour palette. Focusing on bright primary and secondary colours, the hues interact masterfully with the rocky coastline and vibrant blue ocean. I particularly love the colourful neighbourhoods in St. John’s, Newfoundland nicknamed “Jelly Bean Row”. St. John’s is a historic fishing city and when sea captains returned from their voyages, they were faced with rows and rows of identical Victorian houses. In order to make these houses standout from one another and insure a quick return home, each house was painted a different vibrant colour. This tradition continued on and as a result, Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the most colourful, striking and beautiful parts of Canada.
(I highly recommend watching the Newfoundland and Labrador tourism video. Thanks David for the inspiration!)
(images via brian carey, g.luff, jonathan penney, dr hostel, joanne dale, joanne dale, liyen, 13fridaymjf and elisabeth charmley)
6 comments
Gorgeous shots! And a bit of Canadian history to boot!
So pretty!! Such a great way to beat the winter blues – paint the town rainbow!!
I heard that in Greenland they have colourful houses too…but the colours represent the residences for certain professionals. For example, a pink house means ‘doctor’ or ‘nurse’ …which would be pretty useful if you needed help and were lost in a snow storm!
Thanks for sharing such beautiful photos!!
I wish you hadn’t blown out the saturation on these photos. They look retouched and unrealistic as a result. It kind of damages the credibility of the whole fascination with colour if you falsify the original colour. I love Newfoundland, luckily I know what the real, non-Wizard-of-Oz colours look like.
thanks for the comment nemerofsky. I gathered these photos from many different sources and did absolutely no retouching. I looked through hundreds upon hundreds of Newfoundland photos and almost all had similar brightness. The tourism ad I spoke of has similar vibrant colours. It’s too bad if you consider it unrealistic but this is the Newfoundland that many have captured…
hmmmm, not sure where you got the “historical facts” .Jelly Bean Row was invented by an advertising company, not the locals, for tourism purposes. And no one in the small communities I frequented growing up, chose the colour of their house. The local merchant brought in one or two colours each year, and if you were going to paint your house, you painted it with that colour, like it or not. Usually cheap sell off paints, thus the variety of colours.We used to laugh because everyone knew what year your house was painted by the colour! “Look at Jim Ryan’s….hasn’t been painted since 1968″, for example .
And I can assure you the colours are true. On a sunny day anyway.
Actually the area down by Quidi Vidi lake had houses that were nicknamed JellyBean Row, it wasn’t thought up by advertisers at all! We used to call them that when we were kids. And yes. the reason the houses were often painted in bright colours was because these were often the cheapest available.
have a comment?