Color in Composition

Last time I talked about getting the colors in your digital photography to look accurate. You want people to see what you saw, right? Now that we’ve got those colors looking their best it’s time to get creative. No, we’re not going to start adding crazy effects or processes. All it takes to make your photos look great and stand out from the crowd is a little planning and a little composition» .

Think Like an Advertiser

Advertisers know what they’re doing when it comes to color. They know that people have innate, learned, and cultural responses to certain colors. So they use those colors to get a response from you.

The rumor is that red makes people hungry or thirsty and that’s why fast food and cola companies use it. I don’t know if red actually makes people thirsty, or if it’s just that companies like Coca Cola have used red so much that Americans now think of red as the color for soft drinks. Either way, it works¹.

Even if you’re not trying to sell something, you can use color in your photography to encourage a response from the viewer. Want to give people a calm, relaxed feeling when they see your work? Try using cool tones like blue and green. For a more active and excited response from people, try warm colors like red and yellow.

Some colors have cultural meanings. When I see blue and white in a snowy scene I think of Hanukkah while the same snowy scene with green and red elements would make me think of Christmas. Some colors are thought of as masculine while others are considered more feminine. Colors can have all kinds of meanings and choosing them deliberately can help you tell a story with your photos.

These photos of persimmons are almost identical except for the different backgrounds. The one with the pink background looks feminine wile the blue-green background looks more masculine.

Use conditioned responses (like associating red with cola) to create a mood in your own photos. Try adding some red to a photo of a cola. Playing on the connection between red and soft drinks might make the viewer long for a certain brand of cola. Using primary colors in your back to school photos might remind people of elementary school. The photos will look familiar, pleasing, or “right” to the viewer since they’re (consciously or not) reminded of a color connection they’ve already made.

Get some inspiration and find out the meanings of colors. Smashing Magazine has a great article on color meanings. It’s targeted to web designers but the ideas apply to color photography as well.

Use a Color Palate Generator

Big Huge Labs automatically created this palette from my own photo.

Make sure the colors in your photos will look good together. Your whole family doesn’t have to wear the same color to look good in a group photo. A color palate picker can help you choose colors that will compliment each other. Or get creative and pick colors from a favorite painting and recreate them in your photos.

Easy to use color palate generators can help you plan your shoot without learning color theory. These tools automatically provide an array of colors that look good together. Some even connect to flickr so you can pick colors directly from existing photos and artwork.  Once you know a palate looks good and not garish you can confidently use those color combos in your photos.

Big Huge Labs palate generator chooses colors from your own photos automatically. Kuler, a free website by adobe, has more options and lets  you select colors  from other flickr members photos, generate palates from a color wheel, or browse palates other folks made. I’ve used Kuler to inspire my still life photography and plan on using it for portraits» in the future.

Another tool I love for choosing colors in my photos is the interactive online color wheel. I talk more about it below.

Keep it simple

Photo generously provided by Deirdre. Click to see it large at Flickr.com

This cool photo of a mantis on a sunflower, generously provided by a subscriber, looks awesome without a distracting background. The simple green and yellow color scheme let the action in the photo speak for itself.

Color photos look great displayed on a plain white or black background b/c there aren’t any other colors to compete. Many photography sites use either white or black as their background color and museums often have plain white walls to let the artwork shine.

The same can apply to color photos themselves. The subject is the most important part of the photo and you want it to stand out. By choosing to use just a few colors it’s easy to make the subject look different.

Try pairing down your photos to just a few colors. Use post processing to convert the photo to black and white then re-color just one key element.

Or compose your picture to include only a few simple colors in the first place. Product photographers often use simple white or gray backgrounds to make the products stand out. Do the same with portraits by sticking a white sheet or piece of white foam core behind your subject. Simpler still, choose to take snapshots with just the green grass behind your subject rather than including the entire garden in bloom.

You don’t have to stick to black and white either. Make the background color contrast with the subject to make the subject really pop like this watermelon on a turquoise background.

I actually found this color combination by using an interactive online color wheel. I chose the color of the watermelon on the wheel, then found it’s exact opposite (opposite colors make each other look brighter). I had this turquoise place mat that was just the right color so I used it as the background.

Thinking about how simple you can make the color in your photos is a great exercise. I think like this all the time and my shots are that much stronger for it.

Next up is the last post in the Color Series. I covered getting color right in the last post, and now we’ve talked about using color in composition for effect. The last post will focus on fun effects you can use to change the color color of your photos. I’m looking forward to this one!

Stay tuned, and if you haven’t subscribed the big orange RSS button at the top of the page is waiting for you!

¹ Studies suggest that consumers can learn to associate colors with specific products like associating the color red with soda:

“What we know about consumers’ color choices” Randi Priluck Grossman Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA, and Joseph Z. Wisenblit Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA

Related posts:

1. Check for Color Casts the Easy Way
2. Digital Cameras and Color Conundrums
3. Not Green Eggs