In photos: Seeing blue

Blue skies were smiling and bluebirds were singing for Irving Berlin, but blue is actually nature's rarest color. Blue flowers are less than 10% of the world's 300,000 flowering plant species. Even some of the few animals and plants that look blue don't actually contain the color. Blue jays and Morpho butterflies, for example, have developed unique features that distort the reflection of light to appear blue. Humanity has been obsessed with blue for thousands of years, from ancient Egypt when blue, the color of the heavens, was used in temples, ceramics and statues and to decorate the tombs of the pharaohs. In Medieval Europe, ultramarine blue was highly sought after among artists but was as precious as gold. Johanns Vermeer, who painted 'Girl with a Pearl Earring,' loved the color so much that he pushed his family into debt to purchase the paint color. Art historians believe Michelangelo left his painting 'The Entombment' unfinished because he couldn't afford to buy more ultramarine blue. In 2009, Mas Subramanian and his then-graduate student Andrew Smith discovered a new blue pigment, YlnMn Blue, by accident, the first blue pigment discovered in more than 200 years. He had published hundreds of scientific articles and applied for dozens of patents, but it was his accidental discovery of a new vivid blue that excited the popular imagination and resulted in everything from a new Crayola crayon to a music festival in Atlanta.

Posted May 15, 2023

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Photo by Derek Davis

Lobster boats are docked at Custom House Wharf in Portland on March 9.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Scott Giroux, a groundskeeper for Portland’s Parks, Recreation & Facilities Department, paints on the first-base foul line at Deering Oaks Baseball Field for the first time this season on March 31 for Portland High School’s team. Giroux said this year’s mild weather and lack of snow and frost made it the earliest date the field has opened.

Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

Chris “Maui” Funes of Portland is reflected on the wet/icy pavement as he shoots a basketball while playing one-on-one at Deering Oaks Park with friend Jake Ham in February.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Emma Duncan, 4, of Portland, reaches for a blue plastic egg during the city’s first egg hunt on April 8 at Payson Park.

Photo by Derek Davis

A covered vehicle splashes bright blue on a gray April day on a property on East Grand Ave in Old Orchard Beach.

Photo by Derek Davis

A mans walks a dog in the blue dusk at Fort Allen Park on March 9.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Red, white and especially blue are on display as Mary Chukwu, originally of Nigeria, poses with her Certificate of Naturalization for her son Augustine Christopher after a citizenship ceremony at Portland’s Lyman Moore Middle School. Chukwu, who lives in Bangor, has been in the United States for six years.

Photo by Derek Davis

Boats rest on the shore of the Nonesuch River in Scarborough.

Photo by Gregory Rec

Seth Poplaski, a photographer and videographer working for the University of Maine, takes a selfie with the softball team after a grand opening ceremony of the new softball complex at UMaine in Orono on March 31. Official UMaine school colors are “Maine blue” (a deep sky blue), navy blue and white.

Photo by Derek Davis

A neon sign glows from Speckled Ax coffee shop on Thames Street after hours in early March.

Photo by Michele McDonald

Scilla or Siberian squills, picked from a South Portland yard, in a scanner photograph. They are early spring bloomers with an electric blue color.

Photo by Derek Davis

Nicole Hall, assistant manager of Little Miss Cottages in Old Orchard Beach, takes a break to sit outside on April 4.

Photo by Derek Davis

Worn paint makes an abstract design on a parking spot reserved for people with disabilities at Palace Playland amusement park in Old Orchard Beach.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Red, white and blue are a pleasing color combination in a portrait of artist Chris Miller outside his South Portland studio.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Clouds float in a blue, blue sky high above a patch of tulips blooming in Deering Oaks in Portland.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Paul Madsen tests the wind strength by jumping in the air while walking on the Spring Point Ledge Light jetty with Sam Rodriguez on March 31. The couple, from Austin, Texas, spent the day checking out area lighthouses.