City Palette
The colour palette of a city is a silent storyteller, weaving together tales of its history, culture, and identity.
The Silent Storyteller
The colour palette of a city is a silent storyteller, weaving together tales of its history, culture, and identity through the shades that colour its skyline, streets, and spaces. This palette is not arbitrary; it reflects the city's infrastructure and environment, shaped by architectural materials, natural landscapes, and the interplay of light and shadow.
Timbuktu, Mali
From a bird's eye view, the colours of green parks mix with the meandering rivers of blue, green and brown that carve paths through the landscape, each element adds a brushstroke to the city's canvas.
London, England
A bird's eye view reveals the juxtaposition of these natural colours against the greys and beiges of concrete jungles, where skyscrapers and buildings cluster, sometimes seemingly stretching into infinity.
This aerial perspective highlights a city's unique blend of natural and man-made features, showcasing how infrastructure, environment, and the deliberate planning (or organic growth) of urban spaces define an overall colour scheme. The palette seen from the sky is a dynamic one, changing with the seasons, time of day, and the evolving footprint of the city itself, offering a visual narrative of the city's life and rhythm.
Experimental Art
In this experimental art project, I embarked on an exploration of urban identity through colour using Google Earth imagery to capture snapshots of cities from an aerial perspective at a specific moment in time. I processed to extract a distinct colour palette that encapsulates the essence of each city – its climate, natural resources, architecture, and more.
Creating Palettes
A few examples of cities with their unique palettes are shown below.
Cork, Ireland
Dark river blues and concrete dominate the city centre, with some natural areas on the periphery of the image.
Trnava, Slovakia
The colour palette is so different to Cork with browns and cream tones dominating.
Geneva, Switzerland
Lake Geneva and the swath of greenery dominate Geneva's palette.
Palette Pairs
The extracted palette is interesting in itself but can also serve different purposes. It can be a set of colours applied to another city. This transposition of colour schemes allows us to reimagine urban landscapes in the hues of others. The objective is to visually narrate the story of each city’s environmental context, highlighting the diversity and contrast in the resources and natural endowments, like water bodies and green spaces, which each unique palette reflects.
By painting one city with the colour palette of another, we not only compare and contrast the aesthetics of these urban environments but also prompt a deeper reflection on what these colours reveal about each city’s relationship with its natural and built environment.
Each of the following images is about 10km wide and as far as possible, the images for comparison were taken in the same season and within a year or two apart.
1. Huge City V Tiny City
Tokyo (pop 14 million) and St. Davids (pop 1,500) could not be more different. Taking a 10km radius of St. Davids gives us mostly farmland, while Tokyo city itself actually measures around 90km east to west.
St Davids and Tokyo - Palette Pairs
Swipe the images below to compare and contrast
The extracted palettes of a very urbanised Tokyo on the left and a rural St. Davids City on the right. These palettes are used to recolour the cities below.
A huge city, Tokyo, as seen in real life on the left, the right shows the city with the hues of St. Davids, a tiny city surrounded by farmland and sea in the UK. Note the images of Tokyo and St. Davids cover the same approximate size.
St Davids as seen normally on the left, a tiny city surrounded by farmland, while it takes on the hues of a giant concrete city on the right.
2. Dry City V Wet City
The dry city of Timbuktu (averaging 20cm of rain a year) is compared to the very wet Indian city of Mawsynram (averaging 185cm of rain a year).
Mawsynram and Timbuktu - Palette Pairs
The extracted palettes of Mawsynram on the left and Timbuktu on the right. These are used to recolour the cities below.
The city of Mawsynram as it normally looks on the left, and as it is recoloured with the palette of Timbuktu on the right.
The remote Timbuktu as it is normmally seen on the left and recoloured on the right with the colours of the wet city of Mawsynram.
3. Lots of Green Areas and Amenities V Few
Vienna boasts a huge proportion of green areas (approximately 50% of the city), while Mumbai has much less (approximately 10%).
Vienna and Mumbai - Palette Pairs
The extracted palettes of Vienna on the left and Mumbai on the right. These are used to recolour the cities below.
How Vienna looks normally, on the left, while the recoloured Vienna (with a Mumbai palette) is on the right.
How Mumbai looks normally, on the left, and recoloured with the Vienna palette on the right.
About the Artist
I am an ecologist, marine researcher and map maker, turned photographer. Using all sorts of media, I try to weave a unique narrative inspired by the nature and wildlife that envelops my surroundings. I often draw connections between the analytical approaches used in scientific imagery analysis and the crafting of abstract photographic art.
You can find out more about me, my work, my art and experiments at the links below.
