It’s quite an extraordinary thing, color. It can enhance or diminish emotion in a digital photo. It’s really that powerful. Yet working with color, it can assist the photographer to emphasize, dramatize or detract from a certain feeling in a digital photograph. Its funny that color can impact our senses to such a degree. When there is the absence or presence of certain colors we can feel a certain level and depth of emotion.
So how can we add drama to photos by using color? Well the first thing to understand about color is what it does to our senses as I have just briefly mentioned. To understand what impact color has on us think of a digital photo that has we must look at what colors mean. For example think of a color that has lots of yellow in it. A photo with a color like this reflects energy, a sense of optimism, extroversion. The same goes for red, which is a quite intense color if used as the main subjects color. Red can have an impact especially if its against a contrasting color, which we’ll get into in a moment. These warm colors such as yellows, oranges, reds, etc have a strong photographic presence. In other words it’s kind of hard to ignore them.
Now let’s take a look at the other side of the scale; the cooler, more introverted colors. Colors that are emotionally quieter are blues, purples and greens. These colors tend to be a little less energetic but don’t be fooled into thinking they are any less passionate as the bold reds. These introverted colors tend to offer us a depth, visually, that we would not get from the warmer colors.
So that’s all very nice you say, but how can you bring this altogether to create dynamic color in a digital photo? Well first of all you can improve your color skills by having a look at a color chart to tell you what colors work together really well and what clashes. In my book “Digital Photography Success” I’ve explained about the magic of bringing color together and what a dynamic impact that creating that colors, united well, can have. Lets take for example your blues and yellows. Completely opposite but they work together beautifully. Here’s a quick snap I took at Stradbroke Island (Queensland, Australia) last year. The photo is really average, but its all I had at the time and I wanted to capture the enticing contrasts of blue and yellow on a natural background.
So lets look closer what colors work together well so you can improve your digital photography.
You’ll notice that all the basic colors are here. And what works really well are the opposing colors. Take for example the blue and yellow. They are not sitting close together on the wheel, they’re almost opposite. In fact, visually, they are opposite. Colors that have this opposing nature tend to work together so well that we can’t help but be captivated by the contrast.
So as a big hint from me, look for these opposing values in color and you’ll find you have a lot of brilliance in your colors in your digital photography.
Now with portrait photography this is going to change again. Peoples “colors” vary according to skin tones. For example, I have blonde hair, very fair skin and green eyes which apparently make me a “Spring”. This means that people with my coloring look best in earthy colors, pinks, greens, browns etc. My partner who has blue eyes and dark brown hair and a medium skin tone is a “winter.” So what’s this got to do with photography? Everything! If you are taking some ones picture, try to encourage them to wear something that compliments their skin tone. Once again, color can play a huge part in your photography.
So look at color wheels, look at skin tones and charts and really examine color what can work well and what doesn’t.
Benipayo Photography
San Jose | Wedding | Photographer | San Francisco
Contact: Michael at michael@benipayo.com
(408) 717-3670 ********** (415) 763-7643
AUTHOR: Amy Renfrey
Amy Renfrey is the author of two major successful ebooks “Digital Photography Success” and “Advanced Digital Photography”. She is a photographer and also teaches digital photography. Her educational ebooks takes the most complex photography terms and turns them into easy to understand language so that anyone, at any level of photography, can easily move to a semi-professional level of skill in just a very short time. She’s photographed many things from famous musicians (Drummers for Prince and Anastasia) to weddings and portraits of babies. Amy also teaches photography online to her students which can be found athttp://www.DigitalPhotographySuccess.com
by BENIPAYO
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