Learning About Color Photography
ByWhile black and white photography has long been the photo class standard, there comes a time when every photographer wants to experiment with representing the world in the exact way that we see it – in color. Adding color to images brings its own set of complications and requires the photographer to have a firm understanding of the basic elements of photography, but can still be broken down into a few easy to understand elements.
It Starts with Contrast
With black and white photography, contrast is the difference between the darkest and lightest tones in a picture. Summed up, you can think of it as “how white is white?” With black and white photography, there are really only three tones: low contrast, medium and high contrast but with color photography it gets a little more complicated. Color photographs have color contrast, as opposed to the tonal contrast of black and white.
This means that the contrast is determined by the way in which each color interacts with the colors around it. So, although you can still adjust the contrast and push bright colors darker, the colors will look different in the picture depending upon the colors around it. For example, if you have someone sitting in a field of dark green grass wearing a white shirt, the bright white of her shirt will standout against the green grass background.
The Temperature of Your Colors
Any time you’re taking pictures in colors, you have to pay attention to the temperature of the colors. Different lights will result in different color temperatures, in the same way that the sun looks different at different times of day. While there are a lot of technical measurements for color temperature and the way it interacts with actual temperature, we can think of it in terms of tint.
Tint and color temperature are actually referred to as “white balance” in photography. How this works is that film and sensors are made with a specific kind of light in mind and anytime a picture is taken in a different lighting situation it impacts whether or not the white looks truly white. As an example, you may have noticed that photographs taken under fluorescent lights have a greenish tint; this is a result of the color temperature of those lights.
Using Temperature
Anytime you shoot, you want to understand which tint or color temperature is best for your picture. Reddish, warm tints such as those provided by a sunset are flattering to most human skin tones, while cooler, bluish tints are best for neutral product photography.
You can adjust your white balance several different ways- you can do it with your camera, by using filters, editing the image in the darkroom or by using photo editing software. Similar to aperture and shutter speed, it’s usually a good idea to take a photograph several times with different white balance settings to give yourself the most flexibility after the shoot is over.
Color theory is a complex art that professional photographers work their entire lives to master. Photographers often take several courses on color as part of their education, and there is no shortage of competing opinions on how color can be used best to achieve certain goals. How you frame your pictures is also another area of debate. Do you use natural tones like rich brown picture frames for landscapes or do you use warm orange picture frames for vibrant city scapes?
If you’re just starting off learning to use color, then your first goal is to accurately capture the image the way you see it. Once you’re able to start doing this with color images, you can start using different colors to add emotional impact to your photographic story. As always, you should stick to the rule of doing whatever works best for your photographs and what gives you results you enjoy.
