ESSAY

Mauve

Mauve is one of those very special colours that I’m always drawn to, camera instinctively raised.

Hampstead Heath, December 2020. Photo by: Jonathan Posner

Beyond Michaelmas daisies  (of which I’ve yet to find on the Heath) it doesn’t feature that much in the natural world. But I once had a mauve linen shirt that was the most beautiful garment I’d ever set eyes on and it  also happened to be the favourite colour of my first girlfriend – and she was an artist so I guess she knew what she was doing.

Hampstead Heath, June 2021. Photo by: Jonathan Posner

Nowadays, magpie-like, I home in on mauve jackets, scarves, beanies and tee-shirts while tramping through all those greens of Hampstead Heath. If we’re lucky there’ll be a splash of magenta or deeper purple nearby – in which case that will make up the most heavenly mini-spectrum of all.

Hampstead Heath, January 2021. Photo by: Jonathan Posner

I loved film photography because every film produced the same colours so differently, but also so truthfully. And it just so happened that mauve was one of the most exciting colours of all when you found the film that nailed it best (take a bow Fujichrome Velvia.)

Hampstead Heath, May 2022. Photo by: Jonathan Posner

But then there was also the most remarkable Kodak film that I’m sure unintentionally changed how I saw the world forever (and of course my photography is the most tangible demonstration to others of how I see the world). Now, every blue sky got nudged off-kilter ever so slightly so that in fact they all became. . . well, a deep mauve if they were dark or the most subtle lavender if they were pale.

Hampstead Heath, December 2022. Photo by: Jonathan Posner

These days, I take advantage of the wonders of film-emulation software. Not only for the woman in the flowing mauve dress coming over the crest of Parliament Hill but also, if you look closely enough, in my treatment of almost every ashen and washed-out London sky. So that mauve tint is mine, but before you protest at my willful manipulation of nature, I can promise you that if I withheld  the mauve rinse from my photograph I know you’d think less of it, and maybe even of me too.

Hampstead Heath, May 2023. Photo by: Jonathan Posner