Yellow shares the middle of the visible spectrum with green. Hovering somewhere between 570 and 590 nm, its wavelength is just a little longer and its energy just a little less than green’s.
Yellow is bright, sunny, uplifting. It is the colour of brilliant morning sunlight, the colour of a cracked egg sizzling on the frying pan, the colour of bumble bees spreading pollen through fields of goldenrod.
Despite the feelings of optimism that yellow can engender, it simultaneously holds negative meanings. A coward is yellow, refusing to face duty and preferring instead to flee.
Yellow has long been associated with a racist trope. The Chinese in particular, and Asians generally, have been called yellow. Since the end of the 19th century, Western political forces have toyed with the trope of the Yellow Peril as a way to manipulate anxiety and to galvanize public opinion. Donald Trump is only the latest in a long line of demagogues to leverage Western racism in this way.
Whenever I use my photography to celebrate the colour yellow, I hope, in some small way, to push back against these tiresome tropes.
