Assignment 3 - Colour

Well February is not the month to do a colour assignment - I noticed a distinct lack of variety - the main and frequently occurring colour being GREY...
Anyway battling against the greyness I did find some colour to produce my photos for this assignment. The colours I found most difficult to just come across were purple and orange.

I have been reading notes from 'The photographers Eye' and 'The essential colour manual for photographers' , along with the OCA notes, 'Basic Colour Theory'.

I found the Colour section very interesting and look at Tescos array of Bouquet arrangements with a whole new eye.

I feel I have learnt a lot.  Things I didn't know before, like changing the exposure had an effect on the colour, and also I liked the filter effects on the primary colours in black and white and trying something new in Photoshop, which is still very new to me.

I do still tend to feel the pictures I am taking are for the colour combinations rather than the picture itself, but I do now feel more comfortable with my camera and will take more pictures generally, which I haven't been doing before.

I like most colour combinations and your choices for any photograph has to be dependant upon the picture you are trying to produce.  For example you would probably choose pale, soft, similar colours when taking pictures with babies.

I had a trip to Southend to find some guaranteed colour !!  Coincidently I bought a book that I had seen advertise in a magazine called 'Fairground Music, The World of Porthcawl Funfair.'  The book is written by Robert Minhinnick who lives 200 yards from the funfair at Porthcawl, and the photographer is called Eamon Bourke.

Some of the photographs resembled mine which amused me somewhat, as I hadn't seen the book before I went. I have scanned a couple into my photo examples.

Here are my 'Colour' photographs, starting with complimentary.


COMPLIMENTARY




YELLOW AND VIOLET

RED AND GREEN 

BLUE AND ORANGE

RED AND GREEN

SIMILAR




YELLOW AND ORANGE

YELLOW AND GREEN

BLUE AND GREEN 

RED AND ORANGE 

1/3 OF WAY ROUND COLOUR WHEEL




YELLOW AND BLUE

YELLOW AND RED

RED AND BLUE 

GREEN AND VIOLET

COLOUR ACCENT

I know this picture here goes against the colour ratios that we have just learnt about, I did take another picture with the yellow bloom being the single one, but the purple blooms were mostly closed, giving a different effect.  I thought this picture worked well for this topic, even though the ratios were incorrect.

This last picture was supposed to be a red balloon against a brilliant blue sky - well that was the plan - but as I am still waiting for the blue sky I thought I would need to make an alternative.  However if the blue sky does come anytime soon I may add another....




ALTERATIONS TO COLOUR ASSIGNMENT


Yellow and Violet

Red & Green

Yellow & Orange

Yellow & Green

Blue & Green

Red & Blue

Exercise:Colours into tones in black and white

I have chosen to use the same items, near enough, to get the same results.  I have used lemons for the yellow and a Red Bull can for the blue.
As instructed I took the shot required and transferred to photoshop.  Well I must say I liked this exercise, I learnt something new.  I haven't used Photoshop too much and always love finding a new technique. Very impressive, learning how to highlight your chosen colour in black and white.

Below are my five pictures to show the effects of colour filters used in black and white.



ORIGINAL

BLACK & WHITE

RED FILTER 

YELLOW FILTER

GREEN FILTER

BLUE FILTER 

Exercise: Colour relationships

For the first part of this exercise I have taken photographs showing the relationship between colours and their ratios.  Red / Green with a ratio of 1:1, Orange / Blue with a ratio of 1:2 and Yellow / Violet with a ratio of 1:3.



RED / GREEN  1:1

Here the green of the leaves and the red of the berries are even in amounts.  I did crop the original image as there was more green and this was dominating.


ORANGE / BLUE  1:2

Here there is two parts of blue on the boat, to one part orange of the buoys.


YELLOW / PURPLE  1:3

Here is a purple Helebore with beautiful yellow stamens.


MORE COLOURS AND COMBINATIONS I LIKE


My favourite colours are pinks and purples,  below are pictures and colours I like.

I personally feel you can put all colours together.  How, when, and why, depends on what you are taking a photograph of and for what purpose.  It depends on whether you want a subtle arrangement or something more dramatic, you make your decision with colours used.  Opposites together, for example, will always be more dramatic.

Exercise: Primary and secondary colours.

For this exercise I have taken photographs including all the colours, Red, Yellow, Blue, Violet, Orange and Green.  For each colour I have adjusted the exposure and taken three shots, to see the effect it has on the colour depth.

RED

                                                         Shutter 1/100    f 2.8

                                                       Shutter 1/100  f 4.0

                                                        Shutter 1/100    f 5.6




YELLOW 

                                            Shutter  1/50       f 6.3

                                            Shutter  1/50   f 9

                                          Shutter 1/50   f 13




BLUE

                                           Shutter 1/100   f 4.5

                                           Shutter 1/100    f 5.6

                                            Shutter 1/250    f 11




ORANGE

                                           Shutter 1/13     f 5.6

                                          Shutter 1/13    f 8.0

                                          Shutter 1/13     f 13




GREEN 

                                                        Shutter 1/2000       f 4.0

                                                        Shutter 1/2000   f 5.6

                                                        Shutter  1/2000 f 8.0




PURPLE / VIOLET

                                           Shutter  1/80     f 2.8

                                           Shutter 1/80      f 4.0

                                           Shutter  1/80      f 5.6



Having looked at the photographs I feel that most of the colours with the lighter exposure match the colour wheel, except for the blue, which is the darker exposure that matches.