Pink Lady Butterfly on Sweetpea blossom
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge: #Pink in the Great Outdoors

Welcome back to the Sunday Stills monthly color challenge. It’s all about pink this month, and we can celebrate pinks found in the outdoors. But any shade of pink will do wherever it is found.

Nature’s Pink

What better way to continue to enjoy the great outdoors than to view beautiful plants and flowers?

“Anything is possible with sunshine and a little pink.” ~ Lilly Pulitzer

Last September, My pal, Marsha, and I took a trip to Portland, Oregon. We initially planned to visit the Dahlia fields but ended up sticking close to my cousin’s home where her neighbor had two huge beds full of dahlias.

Pink Dahlias
Dahling Dahlias

Who knows how many images the two of us captured, over 100 each, I’m guessing. I had a little fun with photo editing in this dahlia image to delete the background!

Pink Dahlia

Closer to home, I have a few petunias in my backyard that wanted to show off a bit this month.

Pink Petunias
Plethora of Pink Petunias
Strawberry Sky Petunia
Strawberry Sky Petunia

Then some wildflowers butted into the show.

Slender Flox wildflower
Pink Slender Phlox
Wild pink sweetpea
Wild Pink Sweetpea
I’m always surprised to see wildflowers pop up in random places. Wild sweetpeas love our alpine climate.

Not to be outdone, the butterflies and bees horned in on the flowers. A good thing–we need those pollinators!

Pink Lady Butterfly on Sweetpea blossom
Pink Lady Butterfly on Sweetpea blossom
Pink Lady Butterfly
Pink Lady Butterfly
pink flower with bee
Close-up Bee Flower and Bee
bumblebee on sweetpea
Bumblebee on Sweetpea
pink sunflower with bee
Don’t get too close!

And then the sky wants attention in the spring and in the winter. So needy!

pinks stormy skies
Wild Spring Sky
pink sunset on white winter's day
Winter’s Pink Glow
February pink snow
Pink Snow Glow

Pink Glow of Sunrises and Sunsets

“I love how it feels to unwind by the ocean.” ~ Miranda Rae Mayo

How about a pink sunset from Baja, Mexico?

La Ventana pink sunset

Or the pale pink sunset glow looking toward downtown San Diego from Shelter Island marina?

San Diego Skyline

“Sunrise paints the sky with pinks and the sunset with peaches…” ― Vera Nazarian

Pink Dawn
Wildfire-Induced Pink Dawn in 2021

While we continue to enjoy the great outdoors, please be careful around smoke-filled skies caused by wildfires. If you camp this summer, please be mindful — douse your campfires and tighten trailer chains so they don’t spark on asphalt.

Adding Pink to the Fun

I’m always surprised by how much pink we see while out and about. Are pink SUPS too girly-girl? Nah!

View of SUP
Paddler View of SUP
Paddling in sit-down position
Marsha and I coming into the launch, sitting and kneeling.

My windsurf harness was pink and in this image, my sail was, too.

Terri Sailing on a very windy day!

“Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed.” Elle Woods

Inspiring Photo Challenges This Week

Each week I find inspiration from my fellow bloggers’ photo challenges. I enjoy incorporating these into my Sunday Stills weekly themes.

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

The Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post.

  • Remember to title your blog post a little differently than mine.
  • Please create a new post for the theme or link a recent one.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
  • I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

This Week’s Featured Bloggers

Sunday Stills is a wonderful community of bloggers, poets, and photographers who desire to connect with one another. Below are this week’s links from bloggers who shared their PINK photos. I add these all week as new links are posted.

I can’t wait to see how you interpret the various shades of PINK this week! Join me next week as we explore…”Furred and Feathered Friends.”

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119 comments

  11. Terri,
    I’m late again…Your pictures are awesome, and my favorite is the “Don’t Come Close” bee shot. I love dahlias and the color pink. I wear it often. After all, “It takes a real man to wear pink!” My contribution is a pink sky created by a fire near San Bernadino in 2021. We drove out of there just in time. Have a great weekend. Joe

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    • Thank you, Joe! For those shots I can get my phone right up to the bee and flower and yell “shoot” and get the shot without too much drama. That’s a great shot of pink–sadly created by wildfire smoke, boy, 2021 was a bad year everywhere in the west for wildfires. Glad real men wear pink–I could see my hubby in a dark hue.

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  13. When I hear the word ‘pink,’ I think of the pop-singer or candyfloss, Terri. The latter is too sweet for me now, but I used to love eating it as a child. No wonder I have so many fillings.

    I’d never have thought about seeing a pink sky, but your pictures confirm it happens. Mother nature has a lovely way of showing off pink, especially in the garden.

    I also like wearing pink polo shirts, and I’m pleased to say I see many men wearing pink these days.

    Here’s my entry –

    A pink hear especially for you.

    Hope you’re having a great week.

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    • Even without wildfire smoke, we can get some crazy colors of sky here, Hugh. Pink tends to be popular though. Thank you for the rustic pink heart. I think I shied away from cotton candy as we call it–too sweet for me and not chocolate 😀

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  14. Pink is an awesome color, Terri. I love all the pink and its variations in my gardens and in the sky. Beautiful photos. You make me want to stop by the garden center again! Have a lovely day, my friend.

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  21. Lovely pinks especially the flowers – and i like what you’ve done with that dahlia edit 🙂 I probably won’t join in this week as I’m still mainly focusing on sorting my Norway shots and there wasn’t much pink there!

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  32. You are definitely “in the pink” with this post Terri. I really like the Dahlias. They are gorgeous. I told you before I liked those speckled petunias – they fun and pretty. Years ago, when we moved here in 1966, we had a neighbor in her 80s. When she and her late husband bought the house next door, they were struggling to make ends meet. He bought her one pink rosebush as a gift and she took snips and put them in water, then after rooting, and planting, she kept a glass bottle over each one until it took. She ended up filling the perimeter of the yard with pink rosebushes. It was very beautiful to see (and smell). After she went into a nursing home, the house was sold and the person who bought it tore out 3/4s of the rosebushes to build a garage and shed.

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    • Thank you, Linda. Once we get some more flower bed boxes, by next spring I hope to have other plants. I just bought two small lavender bushes from a local farm. They will need a bed all of their own, LOL! Sorry to read about the loss of the rose bushes. Some people just don’t care. When my grandfather moved to his home in San Diego, he had grown two huge date palms in his yard. When he passed the new owners bought the house and promptly sold them for a lot of money as I understand it. They’re messy trees and I get it but its hard to see something like that happen.

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      • I would love to go to a lavender farm one day. I am sure your lavender bushes will flourish and smell well too Terri. Yes, what a shame with the roses which were her pride and joy – she’d be out there every morning hand watering and deadheading the spent blooms. People don’t “get it” sometimes do they? I’m glad she didn’t know about the ravaging of her roses as it would have broken her heart – same as your grandfather finding out what happened to his date palm trees.

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      • Amazing – I don’t get it either. My next-door neighbor had three magnolia bushes which were flourishing and he cut them down to about a foot high because they were dead. I couldn’t help myself Terri – I said “they bloomed three times last year which is abnormal but ever since we had a hard freeze in early June a few years ago, those magnolia bushes have been a little ‘off’ but healthy.” They used to bloom once and done every May. Climate change could be doing the repeated blooming too. Now they look like something from the Addams Family with a few green leaves coming out of the stumps.

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  37. Your post definitely brought me a smile this week Terri – loved the dahlias!! Pink is such a warm, happy color as you’ve clearly shown. And my brother’s son and his wife delivered their baby girl Sofia just yesterday. Of course the photo they sent included her in her little pink hospital hat. What could be better than that?!

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  46. You have outdone yourself in pink, my friend. I love how you took the background out of the dahlia. That is stunning. The sweet pea bumblebee looks adorable, adorned in all his pollen. He really got into his work that morning. LOL I’ll have a ton of pinks for you on Wednesday. I wish you were here to go kayaking this year. We have the weather for it now. It’s been a picture-perfect pink spring. Sorry, I didn’t call you back. I had a busy two days hopping from activity to activity. I’ll call you tomorrow if you’re free. 🙂 Lots of love. 🙂

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  51. Beautiful pinks, Terri, especially the flowers and those that visit them. And another petunia to look out for…strawberry sky! Needless to say, I love pink skies too.

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  58. I’m tickled in pink to see all of your pinks this week. Your flower photos are stunning, no wonder they attracted bees and butterflies! The skies from the fires and smoke are gorgeous and sad at the same time. Thank you for sharing the reminders for those who are making campfires and hauling trailers around. Yesterday I saw a neighbor of ours burning garbage next to a very dry pine tree. 🙄 Thankfully we didn’t hear fire engine sirens later that day. Some people… 🤷🏻‍♀️

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    • Thanks, Shelley! We hit the jackpot with pink flowers (mostly petunias) this year. The bees and butterflies are from the archives, but I hope to capture a few more. I worry every year as wildfire season approaches. Yesterday we saw the fire department training their staff– a good thing! We can burn here but only yard waste. Trash is illegal to burn here, glad it didn’t ignite the tree near you!

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