Mountain-Light
Use Colour Wisely
We are surrounded by colour, thousands of different colours and yet we are only visually aware of a relatively few colours.
Colour can make us feel emotional. It can aid us to visualize a cold scene or unbearable hot day.
There is so much to say about the vital part colour plays in photography that it would requiring a large book to contain the information - here we just concentrate on some practical tips to make colour work for us.
Certain colours shout for attention in fact they dominate the scene.
For example, imagine a mountain scene and a walker dressed in a safe colour such as yellow. Where will the eye of the viewer first rest? That is right, in the yellow clothing because yellow is one of the colours that shouts for attention.
Years ago when I went to the USA for a course in portraiture I was very impressed by how American portrait photographers used colour to force the attention on their subjects. How did they do this?
Imagine this setting: A family walking on the beach at sunset - they are surrounded by warm colours, various hues of yellow to red. The family at some distance is walking toward the camera, all dressed in white. Where do you think your eye will first rest if you had the photograph in front of you?
The eye tends to go to the brightest areas in the image. Using colour contrast the photographer made sure the powerful scene behind the family still became secondary to the principal subject.
Landscape and Wildlife Photography