Understanding Color in Photography

Veteran photographer and instructor Bryan Peterson is best known for his arresting imagery using bold graphic color and composition. Here he explores his signature use of color in photography for the first time showing readers his process for creating striking images that pop off the page. He addresses how to shoot in any type of light and looks at color families and how they can work together to make compelling images in commercial and art photography. He also helps readers understand exposure flash and other stumbling blocks that beginning and experienced photographers encounter when capturing images showing how to get the most out of any composition. With its down-to-earth voice and casual teaching style Understanding Color in Photography is a workshop in a book helping any photographer take their images to the next level.|Preliminary TOC Introduction Chapter 1: The Messages and Meanings of Color How we understand and interpret color depends on many different things including culture circumstances and personal experience. This chapter will explore different colors their histories and their cultural meanings and messages as well as a bit about the science behind how people see and interpret color. Chapter 2: Light Exposure and Color When photographing the two most important factors influencing the color in your images are light and exposure. Color changes throughout the day depending on the quality and angle of light. This affects exposure and best practices for capturing and conveying color in photography. This chapter will explain how to photograph color in different light levels and environments depending on your desired end result. Chapter 3: Color Theory Color theory influences photography the same way it does conventional artistic media. Clashing colors bright and dull colors and complementary colors will all be explored as well as recessive and aggressive colors. This chapter will help you understand how to use color theory to create compelling images. Chapter 4: Color and Composition Color can draw a viewer's eye to an image conveying what the photographer thinks is most important about a subject. It can also overwhelm creating visual chaos. Here we will explore how to use color in composition. Chapter 5: Filters Gels and Flash Filters gels and flash can all influence how color looks in our images. You can either enhance or diminish the role of color in your compositions using these tools if you understand how they work. Here I will explain how to use these elements to get the best images possible. Chapter 6: Photoshop and the Post-Processing of Color in the Digital Age Everyone nowadays is familiar with Photoshop which can help you manipulate color when all else fails in the field. Here I will explore how to use Photoshop to process your color to get the desired end result while also discussing when to rely on this amazing tool and when to rely on your own skills with a camera.|BRYAN PETERSON is a professional photographer internationally known instructor and founder of The Perfect Picture School of Photography at PPSOP.com. He is also the best-selling author of Understanding Exposure Learning to See Creatively Understanding Digital Photography Beyond Portraiture and Bryan Peterson's Understanding Photography Field Guide. His trademark use of color and strong graphic composition have garnered him many photographic awards including the Art Director Club's Gold Award and honors from Communication Arts and Print magazines. Visit bryanfpeterson.com for more information.|INTRODUCTIONWhen I first launched my dream to be a professional photographer back in the early 1970s I began as most did at that time: by shooting with the less expensive black-and-white films. I had my own darkroom which meant that I was also processing all of my own black-and-white film and making prints of the best shots. Six months after I exposed my first black-and-white photograph I walked into the local camera store in Salem Oregon and was delighted to find seven rolls of outdated film sitting in a half-price basket on the countertop. I quickly grabbed all seven rolls paid the salesperson around fourteen dollars and headed out the door gleeful at the money I had saved and in anticipation of a camping trip that weekend when I would surely shoot all seven rolls.After my return on Monday I was visiting my brother—the one who inspired me to get into photography in the first place—and shared the fun I'd had shooting all seven rolls. I laid them out on his kitchen counter asking whether I needed to take any extra steps to process the outdated film. He looked at them and quickly said “You can’t process any of these rolls because they’re not black and white. This is color slide film!” I was stunned. As far as I was concerned a slideshow was the last thing I wanted to make. I was sure the compositions from the camping trip had been my best work yet but now they would never be the amazing black-and-white images I had hoped to print. Seeing my crestfallen face my brother pointed out that it was possible to have prints made from color slides—it was just expensive and time-consuming. The wait could be up to one week and I at the young age of eighteen had yet to master the art of patience.Days passed before my frustration subsided enough to return to the camera store with the seven rolls of Agfachrome 50 film. And several days later I returned to pick up my slides after a long day’s work as a maintenance man for the City of Salem. What happened next was truly a defining moment in my then-young photographic career. As I placed each slide across the camera store’s light table I was confronted with some truly remarkable color-filled compositions. The fields of wildflowers and the blue sky with white puffy clouds seemed to leap off the light table. A plate of sliced cucumbers and tomatoes (one of my meals on the camping trip) screamed with the vividness of complementary colors. It was transformative; I was awash in the tremendous power of color. Within minutes I asked the camera-store owner if he had any more outdated film—if he did I would take every last roll.Unfortunately he had no more but he did offer an attractive discount if I would buy ten rolls at once and an even better one if I would buy twenty (called a “brick” of film). Little did I know just how many bricks I would buy over the next thirty-plus years. My love for color photography had begun.Soon after I picked up an orange filter at the camera store and started using it to photograph sunsets and sunrises. And later while fumbling through a cardboard box on the countertop of that same camera store I discovered a deeply colored magenta filter and a deep blue filter. Although I never found much use for the blue filter I had no trouble beginning my love affair with the magenta filter. It was remarkably useful when shooting during the predawn and twilight “blue hour” when the sun is below the horizon and the sky takes on a predominantly blue hue as well as for shooting cityscapes and landscapes.