Digital Photography Composition For Dummies

Color exists in almost every scenario that you may photograph, so you need to understand the basics and how color can affect your images. Most importantly, you need to realize that the light waves hitting your eyes or your camera's digital sensor create the illusion of color.

In nature, red, green, and blue waves of light combine to make every color you see. Because of their prominence, red, green, and blue are considered the primary additive colors. When you mix red and green waves of light, you get yellow; green and blue give you cyan; and blue and red create magenta. The color wheel in Figure 6–1 shows you how colors relate to each other and what their differences are.

Magenta

Blue

Yellow

Green

Each color on the color wheel relies on the following three properties that differentiate that color from other colors:

Saturation: Saturation refers to the purity of a color. Equal amounts of red, green, and blue create a neutral color such as white, gray, or black. The more dominant a single color is, the more saturation you have. Figure 6–2 shows the saturation levels in red.

Brightness: Brightness describes how much light exists in a color. Lighter shades are considered brighter than darker shades of a particular color. Brightness is represented in Figure 6–2 on the vertical axis of the color grid.

Figure 6–1: The color wheel.

Saturation-

Figure 6–2: This graph represents the saturation and brightness of the red hue.

Hue: Hue represents the combination of red, green, and blue that exists in a color. Pure red, for example, has a red hue. Red and green combined creates a yellow hue. If a color combination has more red than green, the hue is orange. Notice the image of different hues in Figure 6–3.

Figure 6–3: From left to right, each point represents a different hue.

The properties of a color determine how certain colors will react together in a composition and which colors should be used to create specific effects, feelings, and looks. The design of color in a photographic composition is its color scheme; when used properly, it can enhance the strength of your message. When you create an image, keep in mind the following characteristics that people commonly associate with various colors:

Red: Excitement, drama, danger, lust, love, passion, vigor, strength, hunger, stimulation

Orange: Encouragement, warmth, plenty, kindness, nearness

Yellow: Comfort, joy, brightness, friendliness, knowledge, persuasion, concentration, dishonesty, betrayal, caution

Green: Success, luck, nature, growth, finances, greed, jealousy, freshness, fertility, optimism

Blue: Tranquility, patience, health, sadness, truth, honor, peace, freshness, wisdom, distance, authority

Purple: Royalty, power, tension, wisdom, sentimentality, bravery, magic, intelligence, creativity

In the following sections, I explain how to use the color wheel to create compositions that generate a feeling. I describe the many different color schemes you can use and when you're likely to have the most success with them.

Using complementary colors {or contrast

The colors that are directly across from each other on the color wheel (refer to Figure 6–1) are complementary colors. They're opposites, so they cause the maximum level of contrast when you use them in the same photographic composition. For instance, a red balloon sailing upward against the cyan sky would stand out to your eyes more so than a blue or green balloon would.

When a composition is made up of complementary colors, it has a complementary color scheme. You can use a complementary color scheme to clarify your subject or your intended message. By including only complementary colors in your composition, you eliminate distracting colors and allow viewers to concentrate on the relationship of the colors.

Using a complementary color scheme in a composition is especially effective when you want to do the following:

Draw attention to your subject

Create a composition that's vibrant, exciting, or powerful

Give the sense of conflicting feelings in a scene (For example, an image of a red, sunburned tourist standing at the edge of a cool, cyan pool conveys that the day is hot and the pool is a refreshing alternative to the baking lounge chairs.)

The subject in Figure 6–4 stands out because of the level of contrast the complimentary color scheme creates. Everything in the scene is either red or neutral in color apart from the cyan dress that the model is wearing. The dress stands out drastically because of this.

Maximizing monochromatic color schemes

A monochromatic scene is one that contains only one hue (I explain hue earlier in the chapter). The monochromatic colors are made up of the various combinations of saturation and brightness levels within a single hue. Figure 6–3 provides a map of the colors that exist in the red hue.

Using a monochromatic color scheme can help you achieve subdued energy levels in a photograph. When a scene offers only one hue, very little color contrast exists. Elements that have a similar hue tend to naturally fit together and create a sense of harmony that seems peaceful. Figure 6–5 shows an example of a monochromatic image.

Certain situations work best with a monochromatic color scheme. Use one when you want to do any of the following:

Create a clean, simplistic composition: Including more than one hue tends to distract from the subtler elements in a scene.

Give the feeling of a specific hue without having any possible distractions from another hue: