Colour assignment 3 - Colour accent

I have selected four photographs which in different ways use colour accents.

Image 13: Steps in Valetta

Nikon 18-70mm at 55mm: Iso 400 f5.6 for 1/100th second

Valetta, the capital of Malta, has many narrow streets with steps like this. Having looked at photographs of receding perspective lines at my local photography club, I had gained the idea that it is good to have something in the far distance for the eye to rest on, rather than leave an open space. I was pleased to find this street with a British style red post box at the top (I would have preferred not to have a car behind it, but at least the car is black, which contrasts reasonably well with the red post box). The cats were mainly interested in looking up the street and this was the only picture where at least one of them was looking forwards.

Comments on colour

The walls of the buildings are various shades of cream interspersed with doorways painted mostly in pastel colours. The stone steps are a creamy grey. The red post box stands out strongly against these neutral and unsaturated colours to draw the eye into the scene. Without this colour accent, the viewers eye tends to stay on doorways and two cats in the lower left hand of the frame. As the cats are not particularly strong visually, I think that including the post box is preferable.

Image 14: Outboard motor

Nikon 18-70mm at 44mm: Iso 160 f14 at 1/45th second

I took this photograph of a new outboard motor wrapped up in Abu Dhabi in February 2010. This was one of the photographs intended to show "transparency" for Assignment 1 that I did not use. I liked the way the light shows the folds of the clear sheeting over the black background.

I framed the photograph to exclude most of the lettering leaving an abstract composition. Looking at my initial photos on the camera's screen, it was clear that the picture lacked structure and interest if the blue plastic string was not included.

Comments on colour

The black casing of the motor covered by clear plastic is almost totally monochrome grey. The blue plastic string is the dominant visual feature which the eye is drawn to, but at the same time it forms part of the pattern of the folds of the plastic sheeting. It therefore seems to be in balance with the picture as a whole.

Image 15: Poppies

Nikon 18-70mm at 18mm: Iso 200 f8 for 1/400th second

Pictures of poppies in a cornfield may be commonplace, but I had not seen this for many years. I took this photograph whilst in Normandy last week. The scene seems to express some of the glories of a hot summers day. The weather was actually very windy and it took some time to obtain a photograph where the two poppies in the foreground were not bent over.

Comments on colour

The poppies in this instance are a mid-saturated orange. The flowers in the foreground are framed by some green undergrowth where there is a reasonable colour contrast. Further back, the intensity of the orange is sufficient for the flowers to stand out amongst the ripe wheat, which is a much paler in colour, even though the hue is not far different.

In this photograph, the colour accent is making the poppies the visual subject of the photograph. The wheat field, whilst much larger, has become the context surrounding the poppies. The orange conveys feelings of warmth and vitality.

Image 16: Hohemunde, Austrian Tyrol

Nikon 18-70mm at 50mm: Iso 250 f9 for 1/400th second

Whilst this is a "picture-postcard" subject and composition, I thought I would include this photograph as I thought it illustrated a colour accent effect, even though the accent is not that bright and saturated.

Comments on colour

On a sunny day, the predominant colours in the alps were blue skies, blue shadows and the dark browns and greens of the forest. The contrast of the rust coloured dome of this church attracts the viewers eye and enlivens the whole scene.

Colour assignment 3 - Similar colours

For the primary and secondary colours, there are conceptually six pairings of adjacent colours:-

- green + yellow*

- yellow + orange*

- orange + red*

- blue + green*

- red + violet

- violet + blue

I have included one photograph from each of the colour pairings marked with an asterisk for this assignment.

Image 9: Rice fields - Island of Bali

Canon Powershoot S3is: 35mm f3.5 at 1/200th second (iso not recorded)

I took this photograph in September 2007. The late afternoon sun was just catching the colours of the rice in the small fields behind where we were staying. I chose this viewpoint where the grassy banks between the fields seem to zig-zag between the fields of rice.

Comments on colour

Simplifying the colour composition into diagramatic form, there are two principal colours.

The backlit grass is light green with quite a distinct yellow tinge. The blocks of rice are a light yellow heading into orange. The backlighting makes both colours bright with dark shades around the lower levels of the rice beds. This contrast creates a reasonably vibrant picture.

Both colours seem to have a similar strength and they balance well together. To me the colours and composition embody the the bringing together of the sun, growth and harvest in an idyllic pastoral scene.

Image 10: Leaves in autumn

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 800 f5.6 at 1/2000th second

This photograph was taken in UK in November 2007. I have included this photograph as I like the way that the morning sun is bringing out the rich leaf colours and their glossy surfaces. The photograph was cropped to include a diagonal swathe of leaves from top left down to bottom right.

Comments on colours

There is a fairly random pattern of yellow and orange leaves intermingled so that orange is placed against yellow and vice versa. The sunlight is maximising the saturation of the leaf colours giving a vibrancy to the picture.

There are touches of an almost lime-green on some of the leaves behind the plane of focus which adds a piquancy to the main body of yellow and orange, which I like.

(I have not prepared a diagram of the colour composition for this photograph as the colour distribution is spread fairly evenly over the frame.)

Image 11: Bali Temple offering

Nikon 18-70mm at 38mm: Iso 400 f4.5 at 1/160th second

Taken on the same holiday in Bali in September 2007, this wooden bull's head is decorated with nuts, seeds and grains, some in natural colours and others dyed. The offering was part of a month-long ceremony and it was kept in the shade inside a temple. The bull's expression is somewhat reminiscent of the logo of the French processed cheese, "Le Vache Qui Rit".

Comments on colours

This subject is a complicated mix of colours which I have attempted to show diagramatically as follows:-

A saturated pillar-box red is the dominant colour appearing on the snout, mouth and shoulders. Red also circles the eye and is dotted in the headdress. The side of the face and the ear is olive green, whereas the top of the snout is a mid-brown. Gold and orange appear in the headdress visible above and around the sides of the head. The red and gold are the brightest and most saturated colours which as a result stand out. The olive green and brown on the face are relatively muted natural colours and these seem to recede.

Whilst this is a very colourful subject, this is primarily due to the red and gold (and black and white). The maker of the bulls head has used red to draw attention to the bulls eye and its mouth the most meaningful points of the face. Gold in the headdress is a lighter reflective surface which makes the red appear richer and darker.

I do not know what is the symbolic significance of these colours in Balinese culture, but it is interesting to read in The Photographer's Eye by Michael Freeman that "(Red) is energetic, vital, earthy, strong, and warm, even hot. It can connote passion (hot-bloodedness) and can also suggest aggression and danger.".

These would seem to be exactly the characteristics portrayed by this bull.

Image 12: Cross-channel ping-pong

Nikon 18-70mm at 18mm: Iso 200 f8 1/200th second

This photograph was taken last week whilst crossing the English Channel from Caen to Portsmouth and it exemplifies the use of cold colours.

I chose this viewpoint as the table tennis table is at the intersection of the strong diagonal lines from the staircase on the right hand side and the front edge of the funnel on the left hand side.

Detail interest is provided by the handful of hardy passengers tucked into sheltered corners on the deck.

The reflections in the water on the deck provides some foreground interest but it is relatively muted.

Comments on colour

The blue and green tones of the deck are essential to the chilling atmosphere of this photograph. In black and white the scene is drab but does not send a shudder down the spine.

The table tennis table not only provides a focal point, but the blue-green colour seems to accentuate the blue of the deck and grey sea and sky.

Colour assignment 3 - Contrasting colours

For the primary and secondary colours, there are conceptually six contrasting colour pairings:-

- red + blue *

- blue + yellow*

- orange + violet*

- green + orange*

- red + yellow

- green + violet

I have selected one photograph each from the four categories marked with an asterisk which I feel best illustrate the use of contrasting colours.

Image 5: Pet birds - Manipa Island, Indonesia

Nikon 70-210mm at 70mm: Iso 500 f5 at 1/2000th second

These pet birds were sitting on the floor of a motor boat in which I was traveling in 2009. I had just a short time to grab this photograph before we disembarked.

Comments on colour

The red feathers and blue background colours are so intense that the contrast seems as strong as the example of contrasting orange and green in the OCA course notes. The photograph attracts a viewers attention, but the colours dominate more than the content of the photograph.

(I have not included a diagram of the colour composition for this photograph as this is straightforward and I have no comments to add on this.)

Image 6: Water butt

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 200 f8 at 1/320th second

I saw this corner of a garden in the small town of Lassay in Normandy. I was attracted by the line of yellow flowers in front of the bright blue water butt. I decided to include this broad view of the scene rather than a more closely cropped version even though the blue and yellow contrast is a less prominent element of the picture as I liked the composition:-

• The water butt is framed in front of a shady fence between a sunny shed wall on the right hand side and a bright vine covered wall on the left hand side.
• There is a "chequer-board" of light on the water butt. The brightest area of the water butt stands out against a shady fence, whereas the shaded surface and shadow of the water butt stand out against the bright shed wall.
• The shadows of the vine leaves on the smooth surface of the water butt adds visual interest.

These graphical elements already make quite an attractive picture even in black and white:-

Comments on colour

The colour composition of this photograph has a number of elements, as indicated in this diagram:-

The walls surrounding the water butt range from pale orange to neutral tones. The saturated blue of the water butt stands out well against this complementary colour.

The green leaves of the plants on the left hand wall and the plant holders in the foreground do not stand out strongly from the background colour. In principle, green and orange are contrasting hues, but the muted tones in this case do not have the visual impact that might be expected.

The bright yellow line of small flowers in the foreground has an effect which appears to adapt to the background colour. In front of the blue water butt, there is a strong contrast this enlivens the blue and brings forward the yellow flowers. In front of the wall and green leaves on the other hand, the yellow flowers harmonize and seem to recede in prominence.

I feel that the contrast between the blue water butt and the yellow line of flowers significantly enhances the composition of this photograph.

I did consider whether this picture should be categorized as an example of a colour accent. I decided however to treat this as an illustration of colour contrast because the relationship of the yellow with the rest of the composition is relatively complex. In this picture, the yellow colour does not make the small flowers the subject of the photograph, their colour merely sets off the blue colour of the dominant visual subject, the water butt.

Image 7: Orange drink cartons

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 400 f8 for 1/1250th second

This is one of the photographs taken on the streets of Guildford last month on rubbish collection day for the exercise on colour relationships. The orange drink cartons placed on the top of this violet coloured recycling box attracted my attention.

I photographed the whole box of papers and cartons, but selectively included just the orange and red/yellow cartons at this end of the box. I cropped the frame to make the violet colour occupy 2-3 times the area of the cartons in order to balance the relative brightness of orange relative to violet.

Comments on colour

In this photograph, I like the way that the orangey cartons stand out in vibrant contrast to the violet plastic. The clash between reasonably intense violet and orange colours seems to make the picture.

The colours of the red and yellow on the carton on the right hand side correspond reasonably closely with the orange drinks cartons at either side. As a result, the cartons seem to form a single orangey tonal area.

There were some bright blue cartons further to the right in the original frame, but when these were included, the impact of the orange colour was much reduced.

There is a small area of ivy leaves in the background. The green is dark relative to the other coloured objects in the frame, and this does not disturb the other colour relationships.

Image 8: Young plants

Nikon 18-70mm at 18mm: Iso 320 f8 for 1/25oth second

This is the colour version of a photo of a group of young plants that I included in Assignment 2 - elements of design.

The fresh green young seedlings were standing in orange coloured plastic pots on a bench in a greenhouse in the gardens near where I live. I took the photograph from above looking down on the tray of young plants to show the pattern.

Comments on colour

The potting medium in the pots provides a dark background so that the mid-toned pots and plants stand out clearly. The contrast between the orange and green creates a sense of vibrancy which distinguishes the colour version from the monochrome equivalent.

(The colour composition is uniform across the frame so I have not prepared a diagram in this case.)

Colour assignment 3 - Complementary colours

In this and following entries I have gathered together the short list of photographs for this assignment starting with the those illustrating complementary colours.

Image 1 - Dinghy and lifebuoy

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm:Iso 200 f8 for 1/320th second

This blue painted dinghy was on the quayside at Bosham next to a bright orange lifebuoy. I tried photographs from various angles, but preferred this view with the harbour in the background. This angle however reduced the size of the orange relative to the blue of the hull (and other blues in the background).

Comments on colours

The boats blue hull is complementary to the orange colour of the lifebuoy. Both the blue and the orange are reasonably pure hues and the contrast between the colours certainly makes the photograph stand out in an array of pictures.

The background colours also match the tones of the two main objects:

- The stones in the foreground are cream coloured which coordinates reasonably well with the orange lifebuoy.

- The light blue seawater and sky in the background tones in well with the blue hull of the dinghy.

These colour relationships in the image can be presented diagramatically:

Image 2: Telephone box outside Holy Trinity Church

Nikon 18-70mm at 35mm: Iso 125 f8 at 1/80th second

I took several photographs of the telephone box including varying amounts of the background tree. I subsequently used the cropping tool in Lightroom to view the impact of bringing the proportion of red and green tones into roughly equal proportions. This is the version that I felt was the most harmonious which brought the brighter areas of each colour roughly into equivalence.

Comments on colours

The sunlight on the saturated pure red of the phone box is the initial point of attention for the viewer. The patches of sunlight on the leaves and green areas across the top and down the left side of the photograph balance the red of the phone box and draw the eye around the frame.

There are muted red walls in the background and dark greens of the plants and leaves in theshadows but these seem to have only limited impact on the overall tonal balance of the picture. Similarly the neutral grey pavement and dark coloured metal boxes on either side of the phone box have little impact on the tonal balance of the picture.

I have represented these colour relationships in the following diagram:

Image 3: Flowers on waste ground

Nikon 70-210mm at 92 mm: Iso 250 f32 at 0.7 seconds

A patch of waste ground near where we were staying in Normandy had been randomly seeded with multi-coloured flowers. I picked out this group combing one yellow and several violet flowers. This photograph was visually the strongest of this subject as the flowers formed an inverted triangle in the frame with the yellow one in the top left corner.

Comments on colours

Whilst the background green leaves and stems cover a large area of the frame, I feel that that the yellow and violet colours stand out sufficiently as the subjects of the photograph.

Yellow is complementary to violet and both are highly saturated in this photograph. Together the colours seem to envigorate each other. Alone, a photograph of either colour of flower appears relatively uninteresting.

I represented the colour relationships in a diagram:

Using this diagram, I experimented changing the background from green to a neutral grey colour. Theoretically, yellow and green are similar colours whereas violet and green are antagonistic and I wondered how the green background was influencing the relationship between yellow and violet. Changing to a neutral background seemed to change the relative prominence of the yellow and violet, but the brightness of the grey background was clearly having a major affect. I could not tell what effect of any the green background was having.

Image 4: Wheat field

Nikon 18-70mm at 18mm: Iso 200 f16 at 1/125th second

The three previous pictures used complimentary combinations of the three prime colours, blue, red and yellow in relatively high saturations. For the fourth picture I have chosen this photograph of a wheat field taken earlier this month on a sunny evening in Normandy. The colours in this photograph are less saturated, but I felt that the harmony of the complementary colours forms a significant feature of the picture.

This is one of several landscape type photographs that I took in Normandy earlier this month, inspired by the book of landscape photographs by Paul Gallagher "Curves of Grey". I wanted to mimic using a vertical frame with a subject that leads the viewers eye into the picture. Whilst the graphical elements are not as complex as many of his photographs, I liked the restful atmosphere of this scene.

Comments on colours

Whilst beforehand I would have expected a wheat field would be "cream" coloured, in fact the colour is more a light orange than a light yellow. This unsaturated orange of the ripe wheat seems to have comparable intensity to the unsaturated blue of the afternoon summer sky. There are slightly darker bands of colour at the top and bottom of the frame with the lightest colour tones on either side of the horizon. The contrast between the blue and orange colours is far weaker than in image 1 above, as the colours are far less intense. The two colours continue however to enliven each other, adding to the visual interest of the photograph.

I placed the horizon just below the centre of the frame so that the wheat colour is less than half of the area, whereas blue occupies over half of the area. As the colours of wheat and sky are relatively similar in strength, it does not seem as important to control the proportion of blue to orange as in image 1. I did not want to further reduce the area of wheat in the foreground as I wanted to keep the lead-in-lines of the tracks into the field. The end result is that the wheat field and the sky seem to have roughly equal visual interest for the viewer.

Diagrammatically, I would summarize the colour structure of the photograph as follows:-

Colour Assignment 3 - Introduction

The objective of this assignment is to be able to find and use colours in deliberate relationships in photography.

The task is to take photographs which illustrate the following colour relationships:

• colour harmony through complementary colours
• colour harmony through similar colours
• colour contrast through contrasting colours
• colour accent in any combination

Four photographs are required for each category.

Furthermore, the photographs selected should represent a variety of subject matter, unlike the previous assignment where the portfolio consisted of particular subject area.

To achieve this variety, I have brought together the photographs that I took whilst performing the exercises on colour in Guildford and surrounding areas, some photographs I have taken subsequently whilst on holiday in Normandy in France and a selection of my library photographs.

I have referred to the course notes, the OCA supplement on Basic Colour Theory, and The Photographer's Eye repeatedly during this section of the course. Nevertheless, I have found it relatively difficult to classify colour relationships and to evaluate these in practice. I think that there are several reasons for this:-

• I am slightly confused about what is "harmonious" about a complimentary colour combination. If saturated, there is a strong contrast between such different tones. For complimentary colours, I have the developed the idea that whilst such colours are totally contrasting in tone, when they are side by side, the one colour enlivens and enhances the other. If two contrasting colours are side by side on the other hand, the visual effect is jarring rather than enlivening. I am not sure whether I have understood this properly.
• My perception of some colour relationships does not directly match the theory. I feel that blue and yellow is quite a striking and pleasing combination for example, whereas saturated red and green often seem to be rather unattractive side by side. To me, magenta and green is more harmonious.
• The different ways of expressing the colour wheel mean that different pairs of colours can be opposites depending on the colour wheel. For example, blue is opposite orange in the "painters" version of the colour wheel based on red, yellow and blue as primary colours. Blue is however the opposite of yellow, in the "printers" version of the colour wheel where cyan, magenta and yellow are the prime colours. I am not sure whether this accounts for differing colour perceptions noted above.