the Magic of Color
· Monday September 22, 2008
I’ve been thinking a lot about color recently. I feel it’s always been one of my weakest areas in photography, and it’s something I’m actively working to improve.
There are many books on photographic theory, and most include a section on color. These typically describe additive and subtractive color mixing; wikipedia’s page on color theory is pretty good, too. But there is so much depth to the topic, that I often feel a bit lost. I do tend to learn moderately well by reading books, so the last time I was up in London, I stopped into the Photographers’ Gallery and picked up Art and Visual Perception.
This book is pretty hefty, and the few pictures included are diagrammatic. But it has a pretty decent section on color theory. Apparently Rorschach— the fellow who studied peoples’ responses to ink blots?— also analyzed if people chose meaning in an image based on color or shape:
“Rorschach found that a cheerful mood makes for color responses, whereas depressed people more often react to shape. Color dominance indicated an openness to external stimuli. Such people are said to be sensitive, easily influenced, unstable, disorganized, given to emotional outbursts. A person for shape reactions in patients goes with an introverted disposition, strong control over impulses, a pedantic, unemotional attitude.”
Well clearly it’s accurate. I’ve always been drawn to shape over color, and look at me— depressed, pedantic and unemotional =) Ok ok, facetiousness aside, it’s true that I do have an introverted disposition, haha.
To get back to photography for a moment, though, the point I’m trying to make is that I’m more conscious about the colors I capture now. And maybe even taking some risks, and trying some different techniques. I don’t think I’ve ever (deliberately) produced a false-color image, for instance.
Somewhere in Between
I found that I rather preferred the above selenium-toned picture of a sunflower and the roof of our house, over the “real” version. It seemed to better represent what I was feeling at the time. In contrast, the picture below was actually representative of the colors that I was seeing.
Blauwe Maan
This picture was taken one evening while I was lying in bed, looking out the window. I suddenly realized, seeing the moon in full, that yet another month of summer had passed. It was starkly blue in the sky, while the nearby streetlamp provided an otherworldly orange contrast. The photo was shot hand-held with my 18-55mm IS lens. The IS did a good job on this shot, but it certainly was not 100% reliable. Maybe it’s just the particular lens I own, but its IS does seem a bit more hit-or-miss than I would like…
The next photo was taken by Steve Lamb, one of my closest friends and fellow swim-team members in high school. These days, he works as a professional film- and commercial-maker in Connecticut.
photo by Steve Lamb
Those who know me know that I do enjoy cats :-) But Steve’s picture surpasses a generic cat picture in part because of his usage of colors. The warmth of the cat’s fur, the wooden beams, strongly contrast the coolness of the blue, snowy hills. And this is all helped by the framing, the quality of winter’s light.
Finally, I came across the work of a fellow named Ben Hattenbach while browsing the Luminous Landscape website earlier this week. There is some truly stunning work on his pbase gallery, and some wonderful usage of color.
It was also nice to see that some of his pics are from the Palouse, as well :-D
— Emery Ku
Thoughts?
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