Ok, let me start by saying this has been the toughest assignment so far for myself. When I take photos, the last thing I think about is the colours involved, but I take great care over the subject, angle, composition and emotions generated by the shot. If the colour works towards this then I’m usually pleasantly surprised. That’s not to say I have misunderstood the concept of this assignment, I fully understand the implications of colour and its impact on the image, I’ve just found it hard to consciously recreate the effect within my own work.
You will see that I’ve used shots that were taken in the streets, as I wanted to try to replicate some of the things I had learned by looking at Henri Cartier Bresson’s work and quite enjoyed myself in the process, although people can be quite reluctant to let you take their photograph! Some of the shots have been pulled from the library of photos I took on my recent trip to Spain, and from a trip to London with a friend, which were all taken as I was just walking around. The other shots have either been themed by nature or compositions I have set out at home as directed by the assignment brief to use a mixture of found and composed scenes.
I’ve also managed this time around to have success with the size of my prints not cropping edges off and chose to use a matt finish which I think makes an awful lot of difference to the presentation!
So I’ll start by looking at the shots I’ve chosen to represent harmony with complimentary colours. Each photo is accompanied by a small diagram of how the colours are balanced and their movement so my explanations may become clearer.
Harmony with Complimentary Colours
These dancers were part of a show I went to see in Spain and I loved the position they posed in at the end of their dance so I quickly snapped them in a vertical orientation so that their extended arms and tall stance would look proud in the frame. I used an ISO of 200 and a quick shutter speed of 1/800 secs as the light was very bright on this day (about 30 degrees too!) so I was able to freeze the girls and capture the details in their outfits. The light plays really well on the reds of their dress pieces and gives warmth to the tones in their skin and the colours in the dress. This in turn is shown off beautifully by the greens of the foliage behind them which is lit nicely by the bright sun. There is a very good 1:1 ratio of reds and greens in the shot which makes it appear harmonious as neither colour is straining to be the dominant presence, and the smiles on the girls faces makes the shot feel like a very happy occasion.
This next shot was taken at Barcelona’s Aquarium of a tank full of cute little clown fish. I admit that actually this shot was taken with one of the automatic modes on my camera, as flash photography was not allowed in the aquarium and I wasn’t confident enough with all of its settings to be able to take this shot without help. Although I’ve cheated slightly, this was one of the pictures where I did have colour in mind to begin with as the orange of the fish is always something that has drawn me to their particular species, and the reflective blue ripples in the water set them off very attractively. There is not so much water in the shot that detracts from the fish, and there is not so much orange that it becomes uncomfortable to look at. It gives it a very tropical feel.
Again this shot plays on the reds and greens to harmonise the image, but I felt that the addition of the cool blue in the background promoted the relationship between them to come forwards. It was taken at the theme park Port Aventura of the roller coaster Dragon Khan in Spain. I like how the structure of the coaster seems to rise out of the landscape yet is not imposing over it, but moves you through it with the loops dipping in and out of the gardens below, with neither colour attracting too much. I took this with an f stop of 11 and a shutter speed of 1/320 secs as again the sun was very bright on this day and it allowed me to capture a greater depth of field so the coaster didn’t become lost by the attention of focus being the Chinese gardens in front of it.
For this last image I set up the composition myself as I felt I was using far too many of the same colours within my work and needed to have some control to show I could recognise the different ratios of colours needed to harmonise one another. These are my parents weddings rings posed on some purple material. They are a little too golden in colour, so I used my flash to bring out some luminance to them, and placed them slightly off centre towards the curve of the fabric so the image was not so static. I used a long focal length of 55mm and an f stop of 5.6 to make the purple fabric suitably out of focus in the background, so the foreground and main subject would stand forwards. The colours are balanced in their ratio of 3:1 so they work well within the image, and the tonal qualities of the colours are very similar so that neither one is too bright to become to prominent, making it feel very rich and luxurious with the qualities of purple and gold being associated as such.
Contrasting Colours
Next I’ll be looking at contrasting colours and their effects.
This was one of my street shots I took at the Guildford Castle grounds. The little girl was with her family and she had crouched to look closer at the flower beds. I liked how she was surrounded by these very brightly coloured flowers, all of the colours screaming for attention and yet she was sitting quite serenely amongst them all. I had at this point started to experiment with my ISO settings and had chosen to use a slightly higher setting than my camera was automatically using so that I could intensify the colours by using a higher aperture and letting more light into the lens. I used an f stop of 10 so that I could capture the colours clearly in the flowers around her, but just enough so that the yellow ones in front and behind are very slightly unfocused, so the eye is drawn into the centre bed. The contrast between the colours makes the image feel a little tense over all, as if the girl would spring up suddenly and move away.
Another composed shot, very similar to that of the wedding rings but deliberately using contrasting colours to make it feel fun. The subject is a summery one so the colours were important to bring this out. Because the orange of the beach towel dominates so much of the frame, the small injection of purple from the flip flops is intensified, creating a sort of see-saw effect on which colour will be the main focus. Also the triangular lay out of the objects in the shot give them more fight for attention against the very strong orange hue.
I took this shot whilst on a trip to London with my best friend (also in the shot). There was a guy in Covent Garden Dressed as a recycled robot, and the blues in the plastic clashed fantastically with the red of the poster behind him. My friend got up and had her picture taken with him. I decided to take it at an angle to emphasise the bizarre nature of the man dressed up, and the contrast of the two hues of colour just make the image look like we were having a great time that day, with the reds throwing the blues forward to show off that the robot man is the most dominant thing in the image. The smile on my friends face makes this photo very amusing and the colours add to this effect!
Again, another shot from the London trip, and a classic London image. Shot vertically to point out how tall the sign was above the crowds on Oxford Street, and taken with an exposure time of 1/500 secs to capture the cool blues in the sky. It is the opposite of the colours in the robot photograph, with the blue pushing the red forwards in the sign, but in both shots the ratio of blue to red is that the background colour is about two thirds larger in each image, and the small quantity of the contrasting colour is made more prominent because it almost becomes an accent or injection of colour. I liked how the coolness of the blue in this shot makes the sign really pop.
Harmony with Similar Colours
This first photo I’m a little unhappy with as the print didn’t turn out how I expected. I thought I had managed to capture the warmth in the amber tones of the photo coming from the very grand chandelier in Covent Garden Market, as I had used an exposure time of 1/80 secs to allow more light to pass through the lens for a longer period, but the print has come out much darker and has lost some of the qualities that made this image work for me in the first place. It still retains some of the nice orange glow, but has lost the little highlights that are in the beads of the chandelier which added to the overall effect of the warm tones radiated from the light.
For this shot I chose foods that had distinctly orange hues, and then added to it by using an orange filter on my camera. I’ve started to experiment with filters since the end of July, but so far haven’t found them to be exceedingly useful as yet. For this image though the addition of the filter gave an orange cast to the whole frame and makes the spices appear how they would taste – warm and fiery with earthy qualities. I also used my external flash for this image, with it pointed upwards at the ceiling to cast more light over the plate as it was a dark day and not much light was falling into our kitchen.
This is Holly, my partners niece. She’s probably the easiest subject to practice with as she really doesn’t mind how many photos I take! oh and please excuse her bogey nose! This was shot indoors where the light was not so good, so i used a long exposure time of 1/50 and the highest aperture my camera would allow of f/5.3. Any longer exposure and I would experience a hard time getting Holly to be in focus. In real life she appeared much brighter and clearer, but the additional shadows created by the lack of light causes the pink tones in the image to become darker and a little softer. This in turn gives the impression that the image feels warm and that Holly looks comfortable and happy.
So far the images for similar colour harmony have all been of hues that appear warm such as reds, pinks, oranges and amber. This final image for the set is my take on similar colours that make the photograph feel cool. I used a blue filter with this shot to give the quite vibrant greens at our local pond a different shade, which casts this lovely cool glow over the reflections in the surface, and the addition of the bird looking into the pond makes it seem as though he is contemplating a quick dip in the nice cool water. The blue filter made my shots quite dark to begin with, so I counteracted this by using a slightly higher ISO of 250, and a shutter speed of 1/60.
Colour Accents
Now colour accents were something I found much easier to associate with, as they are very similar to ‘points’ in composition. the direct your eye to a specific part of the photo intentionally and create very dramatic focal points.
This was also taken at the Aquarium in Barcelona, and again I used the automatic settings on the camera as no flash was allowed. Even though this image has red and green colours involved, the ratio is very off scale, so the accent of the red on the piranhas belly demands attention over the background and other fish in the tank. Red and green work very well when balance harmoniously, but on this occasion the very strong hint of red is too overpowering for any of the other colours in the frame, making the front most piranha the most important part. The red colour also suggests the ferociousness of the animal as it stands out so strongly. Its just a shame that the reflection of the glass detracts slightly from the main purpose of the photo.
For this photograph I used a longer exposure time of 1/250 as the light was bright and i wanted to over expose the yellow tones of the grasses so that the purples in the plant in front would remain the focus. Using a focal length of 122mm and a very large aperture of f/5 also created a lovely amount of bokeh so that the purple focal points were not distracted by unnecessary details in the background. The little colour accents of the plant lead you up and down vertically as if you are jumping around quickly from one to the next.
This is possibly one of my favourite images I have taken in a while. The strong splash of yellow and purple attract you right to the centre of the photo, just as the flower has ultimately attracted the bee by its dash of colour. Your eye is led right to the very point of action and the off centre position gives movement to the piece so it feels alive like the flowers are still swaying in the breeze and the little bee will be buzzing off at any minute after his feed. The focus is also just so that the only part in full focus is the part of the image that matters, yet the background has enough focus so that the viewer can still see the setting fro the image, and the green tones amplify the intensity of the yellow and purple as they are contrasting colours.
This last picture is a little less successful than the bee, purely because of its static positioning to the centre of the frame, but the shock of orange in the very middle again directs your eyes to the main focal point, and the very striking butterfly is all that matters in the grass surrounding it. The orange gives a warmth to the grass the butterfly is resting in as it is so dominating in the shot.
So as you can see, I’ve grasped a basic knowledge of how colours work for and against an image, but you can also note how I’m still not exactly confident in using it as a main feature in my compositions. Colour tends to be a useful secondary tool to myself to help out the composition of a shot, not the main focus. I know for myself to improve I must use this to my advantage in the future and take it into consideration when looking for potential shots. Over all I have had a few good shots from this project, but in the main not many that stand out to myself as particularly brilliant at really embracing this assignment, it doesn’t have the same qualities of the last assignment I presented as that followed a proper theme which helped the images to flow.
Colours are very much a personal experience, so understanding better how they work will only improve my photography. I feel I now know how colours can balance an image or make it too over powering, but sometimes this can be used to an advantage to intensify the message that is trying to come across to the viewer. Similar colours can create feelings within a photo that possibly would be missing had the image been taken in black and white, for example the warm skin tones in a portrait of a mother and baby can give the expression of love for each other. Contrasting colours can help to throw hints at the viewer at which elements you would like them to focus on, while complimentary colours that are balanced in their ratio can stop an image becoming to tense and keep it feeling relaxed and pleasing to look at.
By using colour in conjunction with compositional skills, my photography should become stronger if I can let colour affect how I would usually think about photography.
