Colors

What kind of emotion is expressed through the color scheme?

Doesn't the stark contrast between the black and salmon
give a strong impression and feeling?

Colors can be used to represent so many things!

This picture was taken at sunset during fall, one of the best
times of the year for vivid colors.

Certain color schemes appeal to the eye (harmonious colors) and others disturb the balance (having blue and orange, red and green, purple and yellow...etc.).









Some people prefer painting or taking pictures during a sunset or sunrise because of the beautiful colors.  A good majority of pictures of the Grand Canyon were taken during sunrise or sunset, when colors were the most vivid.

Only having the green colored gives a new
meaning to this image.

Color can completely alter the message in a picture or support it, and it is important to learn to use this tool well to give interesting images.

How does the bright and perky pink flower make you feel?

They can add mood to a picture or pull your attention to a certain place on a picture and not another.

Playing with Light

Light can completely change the look of your pictures.  Learning to use it to your advantage is a valuable and powerfultool.  Light can be used for many different effects, such as silhouettes, high contrast, to tell the eye where to look, or even to show symbolism.

The picture on the right shows the silhouette of a dog.  This picture uses high contrast with the reflection of light on the floor and the darkness of the dog.  The long shadow also makes the picture more interesting.

Symbolically speaking light can represent many things.  The most common is hope.  Therefore, by using high contrast and light, you can add an abstract thought into your pictures, making them even more meaningful.  

Light can also represent the magic of life.  Without life, nothing would be able to thrive and live.  Light has shone down upon us since the beginning, and I mean the beginning.  So in a way, a place without light is a place without life.  

The picture on the left could either be a sunrise, or a sunset, and symbolically speaking, they both mean completely different things.  Can you tell whether this is a sunrise or a sunset???

The two following pictures were taken at slightly different angles, creating a completely different effect.  The top one shows the power of the sun in its full grandeur.  The rays of light reach far and wide with a mix of magenta and white/yellow streams of light. Being in the center and top of the picture, the effect of power is portrayed in this photo. I put this picture as my desktop background and for the first few days, simply looking at the picture was blinding!


The second photo, taken at a slightly lower angle, depicts a very different effect.  This time, the light goes more to show the magic of life in a plant.  It seems like light has managed to escape the bulb and is bringing life to all of the plants around.  What also is interesting is that the "container" of the light is really dark, in contrast to the inside, which is full of bright light.  This effect could mirror humans in a way.  On the outside, they look dull, but each person has their very own light inside of them.

 Finally, this picture uses soft focus to bring attention to the leaves and what is interesting is that only half of the leaves are in the light, and the other half hides in the shadows.  The tips of the leaves appear to be dipped in bronze.  If you think about it, the leaves can look like paint brushes.  Very high contrast occurs on the uppermost right leaf.  It itself is nearly white, almost glowing, and the tip of the leaf and its background are really dark in comparison.  High contrast usually brings something more to your pictures, making them way more interesting to look at.

Searching For Butterflies

Here are two pictures of a lovely butterfly resting on a rose.  

For this picture to look this way, I took out all the colors except for red.  So the roses are definitely bright red and surprisingly, the orange butterfly didn't show much red on it.  Either way, the butterfly pops out even more in this picture because of the bright red surrounding it.  If the flowers weren't red, the butterfly would have been harder to find and it would also have been harder to find the shape of this butterfly.  If I told you there was a second butterfly in the leaves, you wouldn't be able to find it.  The red also draws attention to a rose hidden behind the foliage that, without the red being exposed would hardly be noticeable.

Representing Lessons Through Images

I took this picture today and thought it was very interesting on how it could express a concept if I had just gotten the right angle.  (Believe me, it was quite a challenge to find that perfect angle!)  The picture contrasts the lovely red flower (which just happens to be the color of life and joy) to the thorns (which happen to be gray, the color of death).  There also is a dying flower on a leaf on the far right of the picture which I didn't notice as I was taking the picture.  This dying flower just happens to complete the picture.

So a lesson we can learn from this picture is how beautiful things may have hidden thorn, and huge ones too!  This lesson closely relates to "Don't judge a book by it's cover."  It's usually stuff like this that makes a picture very meaningful and in some cases, unforgettable.  So to look for lessons to insert into some pictures
is also a very important thing to learn and master.

Playing with Leaves

I took several pictures of the same leaves and basically only did some touch-ups on a few of them.

The first one is is the normal photo without any special stuff.

This second one is obviously the exact same picture, only this time the colors are more vibrant or more saturated.






The only thing I did on this one was make the colors warmer, which means to pull out the reds, oranges, and yellows in colors and make them very visible.  What I like about this effect is how it almost gives the look of a sunset at times or like happy flashbacks in movies.

The opposite of "warm" colors is "cool" colors, which consist of mostly blue, but also some purples and darker greens.  I did experiment the cool look on this picture, but it looked depressing like a stormy day.  So I didn't do it.  :)

I just think it's so interesting everything you can do to pictures to completely change their look or their emotional impact on the watching eyes.  It's always fun to play with and a very fun way of experimenting.  I definitely recommend it!  So the next picture you draw, try drawing it with mostly bright colors or with mostly warm colors or even with mostly cool colors.  You'll be surprised at how much your pictures communicate emotions to us way more easily!

Removing a Color From RGB

Only the color blue is visible.  All other colors were eliminated.

 The effects on these images can be done using photoshop and are always mind-blowing!

Here, only green is shown, leaving the sky a lonely gray.

Gray Skies

This picture was taken just before sunset on a cloudy day (obviously).

Flowers

This first photo was taken with a soft focus which means that one part of the image is in focus while the rest is slightly blurry.

Here is a red rose, also taken in soft focus.  The rose is in focus and the bougainvillea behind is slightly blurry.  Another element which brings focus to the rose is the contrast of bright to dark.  The light on the leaves near the rose are much more brightly lit than the leaves near the bougainvillea.  Our eyes are also drawn to bright colors.  The rose is in very vivid colors, but we are also drawn to look at the background because of the magenta colors of the bougainvillea.