Hey! That’s not a lady bug. That’s just a red bee.

Yesterday I posted a picture of some red tulips, as plenty of other Ottawa bloggers have also done lately. I called it Red, not Tulips, because I didn’t think it was a picture of tulips as much as it was a picture of the colour.

A long time ago I had a post called The colour red. It was just a bunch of red stuff I saw while I was riding around Ottawa on my bike.

One of the photography blogs that I read, The Online Photographer, has a post about how black-and-white is better than colour for photos. The writer says as a test, you should convert a picture to black and white in Photoshop. Then if it doesn’t still look good it’s not a good picture.

He has a point, except that he doesn’t think colour itself is worth photographing, and I do.

He doesn’t live in Canada where the world is white with black trees for 8 months of the year. What does somebody like that know about colour?

Here’s a funny quote from his post:

I think when I’m old and terminally crotchety and running around half-addled with Oldtimers, whenever I see someone taking a picture of red flowers I’ll probably chase them off with my cane. (“Yes, officer. I was taking a picture of those tulips over there when that old coot charged me brandishing his cane and yelling ‘Don’t do that! Stop that!’”)

That’s me. The colour red is a live-giving tonic for Canadians. Don’t take it away from us!

Here’s one more red picture. This year the Canal Ritz has replaced their old umbrellas with red ones. I can’t even remember what the old ones were like, because the red ones are so much better. In fact they are perfect.

I like the Canal Ritz. What a location! Always sit on the patio when the weather allows it. But it’s kind of fun to sit inside in the winter too, when skaters come clumping in with their skates on to get some dinner. How Canadian can you get.

I also posted some pics of the new umbrellas on April 19, in a post called Ritz of spring. (Pardon my pun.)