Colour Divides Shortlisted for the National Geographic Traveller Photography Competition
May 2026 · Award · National Geographic Traveller (UK) · Urban · Colour Divides
Colour Divides was shortlisted in the Urban category of the National Geographic Traveller (UK) Photography Competition 2026.
Photographed in Bo-Kaap, Cape Town, the image finds a moment of unexpected order within the everyday: a blue Ford Cortina positioned between intensely coloured green and pink houses beneath an uninterrupted blue sky.
The title refers both to the literal divisions of colour within the photograph and to the more complex histories held within the neighbourhood and South Africa more widely.
Bo-Kaap’s houses were historically painted white, with their later use of vivid colours becoming associated with expressions of freedom, identity and ownership after emancipation. Against that history, colour within the image operates as more than decoration.
The selection led to Colour Divides being included in the National Geographic Traveller public exhibition at King’s Cross in London during summer 2026.
