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A stunning collection of National Geographic photos at Science World arrests the viewer with images that are complex, beautiful, and sometimes even a bit challenging. Photo by Charlie Hamilton James.
Photo Essays
CULTURE
Photo Essays
Environment

A Reminder That Our World Is Still Beautiful

‘Spectacle’ brims with wonder. And oh, the colours!

Two brown bucks are photographed in profile. They have lowered their heads to entwine their antlers against a light brown background.
A stunning collection of National Geographic photos at Science World arrests the viewer with images that are complex, beautiful, and sometimes even a bit challenging. Photo by Charlie Hamilton James.
Dorothy Woodend 17 Jan 2025The Tyee

Dorothy Woodend is the culture editor at The Tyee.

It occurred to me the other day, while walking down one of Vancouver’s main shopping streets, that there was a distinct lack of colourful clothing in this city. Most people, and I count myself among their number, were wearing shades of black, grey or navy. There was no searing pink, sunset orange or acid green.

Fashion is not alone in its abandonment of colour. Much has been written on the plague of beige in the real estate world, where every new condominium development seems to have the same greyish granite countertops and bland walls.

I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing vivid hues until I visited Spectacle, the National Geographic exhibition at Science World. Feast your eyes on the wonders of the world in searing yellow, deepest turquoise and fat sweet plum.

A panoramic photograph depicts the intertidal zone below and above water; the top of the frame features grey rocky outcroppings covered with light grey and brown shells and barnacles. The bottom of the frame features the ecosystem underwater, rife with round, lush green and purple anemones and urchins. A purple sea star sits on the ocean floor.
Photo by Keith Ladzinski.

As part of Science World’s efforts to attract different, namely older audiences, Spectacle holds appeal for attendees wanting to see things that are complex, beautiful and even a bit challenging.

The show takes its title from a book featuring a range of National Geographic photographers. It’s a reminder that prior to the internet, big glossy magazines lined the shelves at bookstores and even grocery marts, as far as the eye could see. It was an age of giants. A time of epic overstuffed publications that documented the globe in all its magnificence. The current crop of magazines is paltry stuff in comparison.

Back to the Spectacle images themselves.

Whether it’s a group of chefs practising their wok skills in front of blazing bursts of fire and heat or the drenching blue hues that turn surfers into aquatic mer-people, each photograph tells a complete story.

There’s drama, pathos, humour, and most importantly there is beauty, oodles of it. It’s a gentle smack upside the head or, more correctly, a sweet poke in the eye to remind us that the world is stunning.

People in white chef’s uniforms and tall chef’s hats stand in two rows, holding long ladles before woks full of fire; the area around them is red and orange, reflecting the flames.
Two people swim underwater, holding white surfboards below their bodies. They both have long dark hair and bubbles are visible near their noses and mouths.
Top photo by Fritz Hoffmann. Bottom photo by Paul Nicklen.

The show is rippled, stippled and resplendent with extraordinary stuff. There’s the stringy pink tongue of a chameleon captured in the act of catching a bit of foodstuff. And a pair of rutting bucks enmeshed by the antlers.

A green chameleon catches an insect with its long tongue against a lush green mossy background.
A brown hummingbird stands on a twig, its wings outstretched. Fine lines of water surround it.
Top photo by Christian Zeigler. Bottom photo by Anand Varma.

Not all of the photos are pretty. Some are distinctly not, but they still arrest the eye and demand that you slow down, take some time and fully ingest the scale, composition and, yes, glorious heaps of colour. In terms of storytelling, it is colour that carries the weight of the different narratives, operating at almost a cellular level.

Rows of short stacks of round grey stones stand against a black surface.
Photo by Mark Thiessen.

The impact of colour has been studied for a long time, not only by artists and image makers but by scientists as well.

Issac Newton was one of the first to codify colour in 1666, when he conducted a series of experiments using a prism to break down refracted light into its component parts. The organizing system, the colour wheel of orange, red, yellow, green, blue and violet, is still the one we’re most familiar with many centuries later.

Each hue varies widely, depending upon the situation and circumstance. In some situations, red is the colour of love and romance. In other places, like an intersection, it screams “Stop!” In prisons and other carceral institutions, walls are painted in pastel hues, the better to calm folks down. Colour has a direct impact on blood pressure and breathing and pulse rates. Although the greenish hue of certain government offices might drive you to commit crimes in the name of more robust chroma.

Colour has been shown to have significant impacts on learning. Its power is evident in everything from design to architecture.

It’s curious that in the fashion world, colour has seemingly fallen from favour, but maybe we’re due for a resurgence of sunshine yellow and cerulean blue.

Despite everything we humans have done to the planet, its beauty persists. I used to think that was enough, that beauty demanded a certain respect and attention.

City living disabused me of that notion very quickly, but this collection of images, with its innate dignity and wonder, is a timely reminder of this remarkable place, brimming with richness, complexity and ravishing, glorious colour.

‘Spectacle’ is on display at Science World in Vancouver until May 19, 2025.  [Tyee]

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