Colour

Time to colour your world!
Let’s use colour to evoke an emotion or simply celebrate all the colours around us.

When photographing colour use the following tips:

Use Colour to Evoke Different Emotions
For instance, red may make us think of danger, strength, power or love. Red has the widest spectrum of emotions and is considered to be the most emotional colour. Blue and green are colours that are found in our natural surroundings and are most often associated with calmness, freshness and hopefulness. They’re very relaxing and tranquil colours. Energetic and cheerful moods are often suggested using the colours yellow and orange. Purple is the colour of power, luxury and nobility. White suggests light and purity, while black signifies elegance, mystery and fear.

Use Contrasting Colours
Contrasting colours, or complementary colours as they’re otherwise known, are the colours that appear opposite each other on the colour wheel, such as blue and orange, or red and green. Using contrasting colours together can create a very bold and eye-catching image. The clash of the strong colours tends to create a dynamic image with a feeling of excitement.

Use Vivid Colours for Maximum Impact
Using bold vivid colours in a photo results in an image with a very strong visual impact. Choose one or two bright colours as the focal point so that the eye is drawn immediately to your subject. When using vivid colours, try to make sure the photo isn’t filled with so many colours that it becomes too cluttered. A neutral background, without any other colours competing for attention, will give more priority to the vivid colour of your subject.

Fill the Frame with A Colour
Filling all or most of the frame with a single colour is an excellent way of creating a strong visual impact, whether you’re using vivid or muted colours. Filling every last inch of the frame with the colour of your subject is such a great way of presenting your scene and placing emphasis on the colour. An easy way to do this is to get up close to your subject so that none of the background is visible.

Use A Splash of Colour
Another powerful use of colour in photography is to add a pop of colour to an otherwise neutral scene. Colourful props are a great way of achieving this effect.

Alter Colours in Post-Processing
While it’s important to try and capture the correct colour of your subject, sometimes it may be necessary for you to enhance, correct or alter the colours after you’ve taken the photo. It may be because the light changed the true colours of the subject or simply because you’re making an artistic choice to alter the image in some way. Use the iPhone editor or your favourite editing app to play with the colours.

Edit your Image
Smartphones have robust editing function for images. On an iPhone, tap “Edit” on the top right corner to play with exposure, contrast, warmth, shadows etc.

Can’t wait to see your images!