Colour

Colour 

            Definition and Theory 

• It is when light is striking an object and reflects light back into the human eye. 
• Colour is when light is separated through a spectrum and reflects off an object. 
• When trying to define colour, the three properties to consider is Hue, Value and, Saturation. 
• Muted colours is when you take a colour and you mix it with black or grey to dull it. 
• Saturated colours are how intense the colour is. 
• Analogous colours are a group of three which are next to each other on the colour wheel. 
• Complementary colours are opposite colours which compliment each other and stand out. 
• Vibrant colours and the purest type of colour. 
• Warm colours can be overwhelming.
• Primary colours are three colours that make every other colour (red, blue, yellow)

Colour and emotion

Colour can effect or reflect our emotion. If you're surrounded by a certain colour, it can make you feel in a certain way. 

For example, 

Red can represent passion, love, anger or danger.

Orange can represent happiness, movement, energy.

Yellow can represent warmth, lively, slow, poor skin. 

Green can represent nature, calming, friendliness, envy. 

Blue can represent isolation, trusting, distant, peaceful. 

Purple can represent creativeness, spiritual, relaxing, royal. 

                   Colour Wheel                                                                       Muted Colours 

                Saturation                                                                                         Analogous                       

                 

                            

Complementary

For Example: 

Muted colour photography

(where the colours have been mixed with black or grey)

Saturated colour photography

(how intense the colour is)

Complementary colour photography
(colours opposite on the wheel)

Analogous colour photography
(three colours next to each other on the wheel)

Image Bank

I chose these photos for my image bank because I thought I would be able to capture something similar within Harlow college. All of these photos represents "Colour" because they all have bright and vibrant colours. Furthermore, the colours in the image bank attracts the human eye very easily by using a higher saturation and complementary colours. 

Example of colour
                                              Youtube Images

In this music video, the overall mode was happy and upbeat, therefore, the colours used in this music video is vivd, bright and saturated colours. Also, the bold colours stand out and gives a visually positive mood. 

In this music video, the overall mood was gloomy and depressing, therefore, the colours in the video was dark and mysterious, and you was unable to see much. Additionally, the colour of the music video portrayed the atmosphere the song made. 

Artist research

         William Eggleston

William Eggleston is an American photographer who is well known for his colour photos. I decided to research the photographer William Eggleston to help inspire me for colour. I like his work because the colour stands, dominating the image. He helps inspire me come up with ideas for my photos because he sometimes takes images from different angles them normal, this makes me think of what sort of angles I could do when taking my pictures. 

This photograph is of a blue car parked on the street taken from a low angle. William Eggleston has created an illusion that we are looking up at the car, giving the impression that we are a lot smaller than the car. The colour blue has a sting theme in this photo by different sections being either a darker or lighter shade - this causes the photo to seem peaceful but at the same time isolate the car so our main focus is there. Additionally, this photo could suggest how machines are becoming more superior to humans, therefore we look up to it causing hierarchy. This could imply how machines are slowly taking over regular jobs and humans are gradually becoming less relevant. Some of the colours in this photo seems slightly muted to give more of a foreboding sensation.

In this photo, William Eggleston has used the colour red as the main theme to represent the idea of love and passion. This photo could be in a restaurant or a bar where couples or a group of friends go to which can represent the love and bond between the different people. However, red could demonstrate danger which links to the light bulb and electricity, how it might be a simple object but still be extremely dangerous if not treated properly (almost as if William Eggleston is warning us). Additionally, the vertical line helps emphasise this by showing power and strength. The red is a bold colour to help make the photo stand out even more and the light bulb's colour is slightly more dull, therefore causing a contrast in the photo making it seem more interesting. 

The colours in this photo seem more dull compared to other pieces of his work making it look more interesting and different. All of the colours are roughly in the same section of the colour wheel (analogous colours) this helps the picture have a smother transition from each section and create an overall calming sensation. The oranges and browns help exaggerate the sense of movement coming from the train tracks which causes the eye to be dragged through the picture due to the leading lines. Additionally, I like the sky it plain and with no texture with clouds because it emphasises the train tracks and trees around it, making it the main attraction and all of the focus to be on there. 

Selected Images 
                                        Contact Sheets 

My Best Images

I chose these next few images as my best ones.

I chose these as my best images because I liked how the background is slightly blurred to make the main part of the image stand out even more. Additionally, my images consist of complementary colours to help it stand out because there is a strong contrasting. Furthermore, I like how I used the rule of thirds and made everything slightly off centre and it helps to show the background is slightly blurred.

William Eggleston helped inspire me to take these photos because his photos has very strong colours and I tried to use that style within my own photography work. Additionally, his photos uses a lot of complementary colours and I decided to emphasise that I understood how Eggleston work and manipulate it into my own style.



Images that require improvements

I do not like these photos because they look really busy and because there is too much going on within the photo. Furthermore, to improve these photos i would on focus on one spot to try and portray the complementary colours. Additionally, due to the photo being busy, it does not attract the human eye because there is nothing to focus on. Next time, I would only focus on one area to portray colour instead of a larger area. Also, I couldn't get my photo to focused on a certain area because the whole image was too busy, therefore, I was unable to get a blurred background to add more depth to my photo.




AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.
My idea for recording line was to photograph the urban landscape of Harlow and the college to explore the idea of colour. My artist researcher was William Eggleston which inspired to take pictures of objects with complementary and analogous colours. Some of my images came out as I expected it to but I need to be careful on how I focus things because sometimes the image can look too busy and when I took these photo, it was a cloudy day.

The image of the red flower shows complementary colour because they are opposite sides of the colour way, making the red flower stand out from the green background. This links to my artist researcher (William Eggleston) because he uses complementary and analogous colours in his photography. In photoshop, I will manipulate my photo to create a high saturation on the flower and low saturation in background to make the contrast stand out even further and emphasise the colours, like Eggleston does.

I like my photo of the red berries because the red stands out clearly compared to the green background. Also, I like how the background is blurred slightly which helps portray the red even more. This photo was inspired William Eggleston because most of his photos have a strong contrast of colour which helps his images look very powerful.



AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

To take these photos, I used my Canon 600D camera with a EPS 18-55 Canon lens. However, I accidentally set my camera to Tungsten white balance when I was shooting outside, therefore, it made all of my photos look slightly white washed. To make sure I avoid this in the future, I will double check my settings to make sure I am in the correct setting. My shutter speed was at 1/125 and my ISO was on automatic.


Manipulating my images

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

The artist I decided to research was William Eggleston. He helped me produce many ideas for my composition of colour. He used high saturated complementary and analogous colours within his artwork to help them stand out, and I wanted to be able to make my artwork stand out like his did. I went around the college to try and find flowers and other objects that shows a strong contrast of colour. However, William Eggleston takes all of his photos of an American style of life and objects, which I could not do because I am not surrounded by the same culture as Eggleston.

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.

My intentions of my images were to create a strong contrast of colour using complementary colours; I tried to create this within my photography because it attracts the human eye. However, to make them more personal to me, I decided to change the composition to help emphasise the different colours within my image. I chose to take pictures of flowers because I wanted to capture the elegance and beauty of nature through their colours. 

I decided to manipulate my pictures to help portray how I understand "colour", this helps me explore different routes to help explore the term colour. Additionally, by manipulating my photos it allows me to add more depth to my photo. Furthermore, I like how I've managed to exaggerate the key features of my photo by making the colour standing out even more by changing the saturation. However, to improve my photoshop edits by making the background darker so I can make the focus point on the main object, to help it stand out even more.