Someone recently asked me to do a blog post specifically on color. Personally, I loved this idea, but I was also slightly worried this would turn into a color theory lecture (which was always the most boring week in my art classes in school).
So of course, I felt like I had to take this post in a different direction from typical color discussions. Instead of talking about how different colors absorb light differently or how yellow and blue mixed together make green, I want to make it a bit more personal and share with you why color is so critical to my art.
Of course, I am not saying that all art is dependant on color. There is a lot of black and white work out there that is most definitely art. But it is critical to what I create because it doesn’t just make a pretty picture. It also does all of these things:
- It connects my images together,
- it brings out or draws attention to certain details in my images,
- it creates specific moods that in turn (and most importantly),
- helps to tell my stories.
This first point is kind of obvious. Whenever I create a series or a mini-series, one of the ways I like to bridge images is with the use of colors. The two mini series below are a good example of this:
In An bóthar a shiúl, my series from my trip to Ireland, each of the different scenes are noticeably different colors. However, because each scene in the series is a different color, it works… kind of like all the colors in a rainbow work together. They are also all tied together by the model’s white dress, which is prominent in each image.
This mini-series of my sister, however, is a more traditional use of color to connect images. They are all processed with a consistent color scheme (warm yellows, browns, and reds) to make the viewer feel as if they’ve been placed in one scene with the subject.
I also like to use color to immediately draw the eye to certain details in an image. In the mini series below, I used a monotone color palette of greens and browns, which would contrast with the ruby red rose, making the rose stand out from the rest of the scene and really pop.
Color also plays a huge role in setting the mood of a photo, and I will get into why this is so important in a little bit. But for now, here’s some examples of what I mean by “setting the mood”:
In this self-portrait below, I wanted to use very deep, rich colors for their sophistication, green for its soothing effect, and warm undertones for… well, warmth! All of these work together in such a way to create a certain mood in the piece.
For this image in my An bóthar a shiúl series, I wanted the mood to be very eery and emotional. I also wanted to create this sense of other-worldliness, and so I used purple. It’s a color that adds moodiness and emotion, whether it’s very saturated or hardly at all, and because it’s not present in nature as often, it also makes the image really stand out.
In my opinion, though, the mood is only half of this color equation. By creating these moods with the use of color, this in turn helps tell a story (more than just the posing and the landscape could on their own).
Going back to the self portrait example, I very carefully considered my color choices when I created the image because I knew this was going to be the “official” face of my photography. I strive to be elegant and sophisticated with how I portray myself and by using these deep, rich colors I could communicate that. However, the soothing green and the warm undertones help to tone back all that stuffy elegance and sophistication with an air of comfort and friendliness.
For the images in my An bóthar a shiúl series, I wanted to really drive home the feeling that this was an entirely new experience and landscape from anything I’d experienced before. As I mentioned earlier, purple is not a color that you see very often in nature, so using it in this image made the point that the subject was in this foreign place.
Color may seem like a really simple thing, but when you look at it from this perspective, you realize what an important role it can play in art (and in practically every other aspect of life, but that’s for another blog post).
So I’m hoping this was a more interesting read than your typical “color theory” lecture! Any one of these elements can be done with other aspects of the creative process: the posing, the location, the costuming, you name it. However color is one of the key elements I prefer to use in my images and is something that I feel adds just a touch more emotion and intensity to my stories.
What do you think? Am I succeeding in that endeavor?
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