Think, Color 2

Think, Color 2

So, I’ve been criticized for not posting enough examples and not explaining more about subject I wrote about, color particularly. That’s why I went for a walk the other day, looking for color :) I decided that the part 2 will be the simplest it can be.

It was a dull weather and dull scenery. Winter is nothing like the real winter we used to. It’s like a depressed fall here. I went for a walk to capture some color, for posting examples. I thought to simplify here. If you couldn’t follow trough “Think, Color 1″ maybe this will help you.

Think, Color 2 is about when color works and how does it work in real, simple examples.

I parked my car near this iron polls eaten by the rust.  Oh yellow! I shot them simply from above. When you first see this photo chances are that you instantly think “Yellow” and then “Circle”, you named the color first and then the shape.  There is no post processing here except the square crop, so the colors are exactly the same as in the real world.

 

yellow (Small)

Now, What do you see when I remove the color?

yellowinbw (Small)

Nothing much. Again, first you’ll notice a lack of color, grey tones, and then the circle. There is not enough separation between the subject and the background. I’ll leave it this way because this is an example when color needs to be in the photo to enhance the shape. If I want to enhance the shape without color, in this particular photo I would increase the contrast because brightness of color presented is similar. Oh, ok I said something once again, without presenting example, I’ll use curves and here is the third version.

yellowinbwc (Small)

It’s better, but would you chose this one or the one with color?

Different perspective of those iron polls next to the road. Again, you’ll notice the color first then the shape and everything else in the photo. Look all the colors present in this photo. There’s gray , brown and dark green. You can see how weather was like that day. Boring, depressed.  Don’t the bars look sad to you? :) This is a photograph particularly taken for noticing the color purposes. It’s not interesting an appealing, but you get the point.

yellowbars

In “Think, Color 1″ I said that red, green and blue are most dangerous colors. They demand attention, your eyes will notice those colors first. If you have those colors in background they would be very distracting and draw attention away from your subject. Look for a background that does not contain those colors. If impossible, then tone them down, desaturate, change hue… do something in pp.

Here’s an example.

mwb (Medium)

You probably noticed the girl, her red coat and right away you noticed that flare behind er head and blue-white jacket  left of her head, in the background. True? It’s just a small part of the photo but so prominent with that color. You can easily change it.

Ok, more examples. :) boys in school.

boysinschoolcolor (Large)

In color versions, again, the first what you would notice is color, green, blue and yellow. Do you see how small that yellow leaf is, in the right bottom corner, but it screams for attention!

Look at their shirts. Do I need to keep those colors? Do they help me say what I wanted to say? I wanted to point out their behavior.  Colors are a distraction and I’ll discard them.

boysinschoolbw

 

The first photo would be nothing much without colors in it. I called it “Flowers grow in strange places” :)

What I’m presenting here are just basics. I actually didn’t even imagine to explain something like this. One day I felt like writing about color and here we are… There are so much to be said about color, use of colors, their impact and else. I recommend you to Google a bit and learn  more.

Author Description

I love photography and learning about it. I'll try and fail that's for sure, but sometimes, I hope, I'll do good. As for the Misophonia part of the blog, I'll write honestly about my experiences and feelings, trying to help myself and others who feel the same way as I do and maybe to raise some awareness about this condition. All written here is just and only my opinion.

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