Color is one of the first things a viewer registers in a photograph, often before they consciously notice the subject. As photographers, we need to put careful thought into what colors make it into the four walls of the frame. Painters spend a great deal of time conceptualizing color before it goes on the canvas: how colors mix, how they sit next to each other, what mood a palette creates. Photography benefits from the same deliberate thinking.
Photographers on the other hand spend very little time learning about color theory. Despite the fact that color and color theory is just as important to photography as it is to painting. Photographers who understand how to properly incorporate color into their photographs are rare. Understanding color theory alone can set you apart from the masses of amateurs with their new digital cameras by helping your work look unique, well organized, and visually impressive.
As viewers of artwork, we often form a judgment about a piece within a few short seconds. Something about a photograph may “catch our eye” or we simply look at it and think it looks “right” or “nice”. However, we often can’t articulate what we like about a photograph. As amateur photography critics we often just say “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. However, there is something much more complex going on here. As a photographer, it’s your aim to understand what information the viewer is processing in order to come to the “I like it” observation.
How Colors Stimulate the “I like it” Feeling
As photographers we know that there are certain things that are pleasing to the human eye. As photographers we need to study what photographic elements the audience appreciates. One of the most important photographic elements is color organization. You will learn much more about this phenomenon in your next lesson on photography composition. For now, we’ll focus on how color gives viewers of art the “I like it” feeling. Many great photographs organize color in such a way that makes it easy for the human eye to look at the picture and enjoy the details. Before we go any further we need to learn the basics of color theory.
Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colors
There are three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Combinations of these three colors produce three secondary colors: purple (red and blue), green (blue and yellow) and orange (yellow and red). Further mixing of these colors produces a whole range of tertiary colors to compose your photographs with. These colors are usually arranged in what is known as a color wheel, shown below.
Complementary Colors
To get complementary colors that accent each other and make your photographs more appealing, all you have to do is study the color wheel and choose colors opposite from one another. For example, red purple is the complement of yellow green, and orange red is the complement of blue green.
Here is an example of a complementary color photograph. Notice how the two dominant colors of this photography are orange and blue. Notice how these two colors are located opposite of each other on the color wheel. When complementary colors are used together like this in a photograph they create contrast. Often using complementary colors in your photography will create a dramatic image since each color makes the other color appear more active and vibrant. Looking at complementary colors evokes a much different response than analogous colors (discussed below).
Analogous Colors
Analogous colors are located next to each other on the color wheel. Orange and yellow, for instance, is an example of two analogous colors. Another example would be blue and purple. Choosing colors next to one another on the color wheel can give your photographs flow, harmony and an easy to understand color theme. Unlike complementary colors which create a high contrast and dramatic effect, analogous colors create a more soothing and flowing look to your photographs.
Here is an example of a photograph which uses analogous colors as its main color theme.
Notice how the colors in this photograph relate to each other more. This creates less contrast and a more fluid photograph.
There is no “right” color theme to use in photography. However, it is important to know your different options so you can actively seek out the desired photographic effect. If you are trying to create a visually dramatic photograph it might be worth spending the extra time searching for the complementary colors (opposite to each other in the color wheel) in your surroundings to help you create the dramatic look you are shooting for.
Color Tints and Shades
Colors can vary in tone or hue. Hue is the difference in colors themselves (green versus blue), while tone is the degree of color (dark to light).
There are also the monochromatic colors of white and black. White and black can decrease or increase the shade, or richness of color that you choose. In other words, adding white makes colors lighter and adding black makes colors darker. Making colors lighter with white is known as creating variations in tint, while making colors darker with black is known as creating different shades. You can add white or black to a photograph through atmospheric elements such as light, mist and shadows.
Monochromatic Photographs
Monochromatic implies one color. By picking different shades and tints of the same color, you can highlight different areas of your photographs. For example the following photograph is one which uses varying shades of orange and red to create a monochromatic photograph.
Color Simplicity
While monochromatic photographs are the most color simplistic (often just using varying shades and tints of one color), there are other photographs which take great care to limit the range of colors that make it into the four walls of a photograph.
In our experience we find that beginner photographers not only try to fit too much within each of their photographs, they also try to fit too many colors in each of their photographs. The results are often disappointing from both the photographer’s standpoint and the audience’s. The human eye doesn’t want to work too hard when looking at a photograph. By limiting information and colors you can effectively simplify your photograph and make it more appealing to look at. Notice how the lack of color clutter in the following photograph creates a dramatic yet simple and visually appealing photograph. This photograph isn’t monochromatic as it uses black, shades of yellow and orange and shades of green to compose the picture, but it still has much more color organization than most amateur photographs as it only lets in three big color ranges (orange, green and black).
Color simplicity is one of the major elements that separates great photography from good photography. By organizing your colors more carefully you can step out of the world of amateur photography and display your photographs on a much more professional level.
Many photographers don’t know exactly what it is they don’t like about their photographs when they get them developed or look at them on their computer screen. Well the good news is that often the “it” is the fact that the photograph is too busy with such a broad array of colors that it becomes distracting and annoying for the eye to look at.
Remember, painters place a lot of time on the concepts of color balance and color simplicity. Just because you are using a camera it doesn’t mean you should ignore these subjects. By paying close attention to colors in your photographs you can create more appealing, more harmonious photographs that look good both to you and to your viewers.
Muting color
Throughout this course you’ll find us repeating the old adage that “less is often more”. We have stated in past lessons that limiting the elements which make it into the four walls of your photograph is often desired. This can often be achieved by limiting the amount of “things” in your photograph. We have also stated that limiting colors is a great way to add simplicity to your photography. A picture filled with varied and confusing colors and tones is often much more difficult to look at then one that is well organized and limited in terms of objects and colors used.
What we want to discuss with you now is how muted colors can add a great dramatic effect to your photography. Muted colors can help convey many different moods from mysteriousness and sexy to dreamy and surreal.
Hazy lighting, rain or mist are all natural atmospheric conditions that can naturally help mute the colors in your photograph. However, these natural muting conditions are not easy to come by. Therefore you might want to consider getting a clear plastic diffuser for your camera lens. Diffusers can be purchased in a variety of strengths but all have the same ability to spread light.
You can also mute colors by slightly overexposing your photographs. Overexposing can help you give the photograph a bleached out look which will help further mute the colors.
Color associations
Colors carry cultural and emotional associations that filmmakers, painters and photographers use deliberately. These associations are learned through culture and context rather than fixed laws of psychology, and they vary somewhat between cultures, but within a given audience they are consistent enough to plan around. Picture a dark, blue-toned night scene and think about the mood it sets. Now picture a bright red room. The associations are clearly different, even before anything else in the frame changes. Below are the associations most commonly used in photography and film within Western visual culture.
Black
Associated with authority, formality and power. It also reads as sleek and timeless, which is why it dominates so much editorial and fashion photography. Used heavily, it can also read as somber or foreboding, depending on what else is in the frame.
White
Associated with cleanliness, simplicity and calm. It reflects light rather than absorbing it, which is part of why high key photography (covered in the composition lesson) reads as light and open.
Red
The most visually intense color on the wheel. It draws the eye first in almost any frame it appears in, which is why it works so well as a small accent against a duller background. It reads as urgent, passionate or alarming depending on context.
Blue
Reads as calm, cool and stable, the visual opposite of red. It is the color of open sky and open water, which is likely why it reads as peaceful in so many contexts. It can also read as cold or distant when it dominates a frame with no warm color to balance it.
Green
Strongly associated with nature, growth and calm, since it is the dominant color of living plant life. It sits in the middle of the visible spectrum and is generally the least visually fatiguing color to look at for long periods.
Yellow
An attention getting, energetic color, associated with optimism and warmth. It is also one of the more visually demanding colors to look at in large, saturated blocks, so it tends to work best as an accent rather than filling the frame.
Purple
Historically associated with royalty and luxury, largely because purple dye was expensive and rare before synthetic pigments existed. It reads as sophisticated or opulent, and because saturated purple is uncommon in nature, a strongly purple scene can also read as artificial or otherworldly.
Brown
Associated with earth, wood and stability. It reads as grounded and reliable, and it is the dominant color of most natural landscapes outside of green foliage and blue sky.
Creating Balance or Highlights
Now that you know more about how to use colors from a simplification standpoint and a psychological standpoint, we’re now going to discuss using color to create balance and highlights. The process of creating color symmetry or highlights within a photograph is a great way to add an interesting color element to your photograph. As mentioned earlier, colors such as red, orange and yellow are considered warm colors whereas purples and blues would be considered cool colors. Therefore if you are trying to create a feeling of coolness in your photography you should seek out areas that have a substantial blue influence. However, it is also important to note that a photograph which uses 50% warm colors and 50% cool colors will seem neither cold nor warm. The opposing forces will balance each other out and the photograph will appear neutral. However, if you had a photograph and it was 90% cool and 10% warm it would be called creating a cool photograph with warm highlights. Often viewers find these pictures with added cool or warm ‘highlights’ very appealing to the eye.
The following photograph is great because it limits the number of colors in the photograph to a handful with only two colors making up the majority of the shot (orange and blue). Because of the color simplicity of this picture, it’s very easy for the human eye to look at. However, notice that the warm colors take up about 50% of the space and the cool colors take up the other 50% of the space. The result is that the picture looks neither cool nor warm.
Now let’s look at another example using a photograph which used predominantly cool colors with a smaller percentage of warm colors creating what we now know is a highlighted look.
Notice that in the last photograph the sky is blue, the ocean is blue and the city itself is accented with dark blue colors. This creates an overall cool feeling since about 80% of the picture is composed of various shades of blue. The warm colors act as the ‘highlight’ and can be found in the yellows on the beach and the oranges on the street. The photograph above is a great example of how to use color highlighting properly.
White Balance: Correcting for the Color of Light
Everything discussed so far in this lesson assumes the colors in your photograph are rendering the way you intended. But the light itself has a color, measured in degrees Kelvin, and your camera has to make a decision about how to interpret it. Ordinary household tungsten bulbs are around 2700 to 3000 Kelvin and skew strongly orange. Overcast daylight is around 6500 to 7500 Kelvin and skews blue. Your eyes correct for this automatically without you noticing; a white shirt looks white to you whether you are standing under a bulb or under a cloudy sky. A camera sensor has no such correction built in unless you tell it what the light source is.
This is what white balance controls. Set it correctly and neutral colors, whites, grays, skin tones, render accurately regardless of the light source. Set it incorrectly and the whole photograph takes on a color cast: too orange under tungsten light if the camera is set for daylight, too blue under daylight if the camera is still set for tungsten. Auto white balance does a reasonable job in mixed or ambiguous light, but it frequently gets fooled by a single dominant light source, which is exactly the situation where setting white balance manually pays off.
Try the tungsten white balance challenge in the camera simulator below. Match the white balance setting to the light source and watch the color cast disappear from the scene.
White balance is also a creative choice, not just a correction. Deliberately leaving a sunset lit scene on daylight white balance keeps its warm orange tones instead of neutralizing them. Deliberately setting a tungsten white balance in daylight produces a cold, blue look that can suit a somber or clinical mood. Once you understand what white balance is correcting for, you can choose to leave the color cast in on purpose, rather than by accident.