Colour relationships Part 1

Referring once again to the colour wheel, we look at the way colours interact, particularly those opposite each other in the colour wheel.  These opposites are known as complementary pairs and will have the maximum colour contrast.

It becomes noticeable, when complementary colours are combined, that the brighter colour is much more dominant, particularly when they are in equal blocks of colour.  It is in response to this psychological effect to colour, that,  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe postulated the proportions which such complementary colours should take in order to appear equal, in other words so that no one colour being dominant.

He assigned the following values to the six colours: yellow 9, orange 8, red 6, green 6, blue 4 and violet 3.  This gives rise to the following ratios:

• red : green            1:1
• orange : blue         1:2
• yellow : violet        1:3

In order to achieve a sense of harmony, images which have a limited palette, and which are constrained to the complementary colour, should utilise the above ratios.

The images below have attempted to demonstrate this:

Red : Green
1/350 sec,  f/6.7

This red / green combination works well.  I do seem to be using fruit and vegetables a lot in this.  

Orange : Blue
1/90 sec,  f/6.7

Orange and blue was much more difficult to find, but the pepper in the market came to the rescue.  Again I think that this illustrates Goethe's ratios.

Yellow : violet
1/15 sec,  f/9.5

I replaced my original image with this one of a crocus head.  Even though I used a macro lens for this, I still had to do a substantial crop in order to properly illustrate the ratio.

Exercise: Primary and secondary colours - Part 2

I spent quite some time collecting possible sets to demonstrate colours and have ended up mostly with the results which I shot in a local market.  I had wanted to avoid a collection of painted objects, preferring to use natural colours, though I just could not resist the stack of plastic crates used by fishermen to hold fish.  So to recap the brief, three images are required of each Primary and Secondary colour with the exposure varied by half a stop around the measured exposure.  These are then compared to the colours in the colour circle.

The primary colours

Red

Red is an exceptionally strong primary colour and has been described as emotionally intense.  This is not surprising as it is also classified as one of the psychlogical primary hues.  It is stimulating and frequently associated with danger.  It is a hot, sexy colour.

Here, the central image which is the measured exposure, is the image which I believe is the closest match to the colour wheel.

Yellow

Yellow is a "cheerful" colour and, as for red, it has warmth.  It is one of the psychological primary hues and can promote good feelings and is used to represent the sun.  I have chosen these melons to illustrate this colour and have found that the image which is overexposed by half stop is the nearest to the colour wheel match.

Yellow is visible at considerable distances which is why, for many years, yellow was chose as the recognition colour for training aircraft in many armed forces, including the RAF.

Blue

This is another of the psychological primaries and promotes calm and a sense of peace.  It is a cool colour, but nevertheless it is said that in surveys it is usually listed as the most popular colour.

Of these, the darker blue of the crates in underexposed image on the left comes closest to that in the colour wheel.

The complementary or secondary colours

Green

Another of the psychological primaries, green is a "safe" colour.  It is used as the signal to "go" in traffic lights and many other applications.  Green is also a relaxing colour.  Many organisations and religions have green as their colour, Islam for example.  A well known organisation is Greenpeace, hence green is associated as being the colour for being environmentaly friendly.

There is a huge number of green in the natural world and I have chosen these bushes as likely to be closest match to the wheel.  I do not have a pure single colour in the image; it is a collection of different greens.  On the whole, the underexposed image on the left is closest to the colour in the wheel.

Violet

Violet is a difficult colour to reproduce.  It is a dark colour and again is part of the "cool" group of colours.

Of the three, I see the underexposed image on the right as being closest to the colour wheel.

Orange

Another of the "happy" colours, orange exudes warmth.  It seems to be one of the easiest colours to find.

Here the overexposed image on the left is the one which is closest to the colour wheel.

What have been the learning points from this exercise?  The sheer variety of colour is certainly one of those things which has surprised me, particularly with the difficulty I had in matching the main primary and secondary colours.  Another key point was the control over the depth of colour through exposure.I found that the warmer colours benefited from some overexposure in order to bring out their true colour.  I found that some colours, when underexposed, became muddy, with yellow having a particular tendency for this.

Exercise: Primary and secondary colours - Part 1

Moving on to the next exercise.  Here, the purpose is to build up a library of colours in order to be able to judge and understand colours, in other words to develop and refine ones colour sense. The starting point is a simple colour wheel as shown below:

The colour wheel used for this exercise is one known as the "painters' colour wheel".  This is where the primary colours, opposite each other, are red, yellow and blue.  They sit opposite their complementary colours, or secondaries, which are green, violet and orange.

The exercise calls for taking 3 photographs for each of the 3 primary and the 3 secondary colours.  The photographs call for bracketed exposures of +/- 1/2 stop and then selecting the one which comes closest to the colour wheel reproduced in the notes.

I found this exercise particularly frustrating as colour very much depend on its environment, hues imparted by the light at the time and the way that my brain translates colour.  What do I mean by that? Well, a bunch of bananas appears the same to me regardless of where it is, and under what light.  The brain, in many circumstances adjusts the "white balance" automatically.  However, when the ambient light generates a strong colour cast, then the compensation does not seem to happen.  So, at night, under a strong sodium light, everything takes on a heavy colour (yellow) cast.

Yellow
ISO 3200 1/30 f/4

Other sources of coloured light are those used on stage, for example by a band as illustrated in the following images which provide the remaining Primary and secondary colours (excepting Orange):

Red
ISO 3200 1/30 f/4

Blue
ISO 3200 1/30 f/4

Violet
ISO 3200 1/30 f/4

Green
ISO 3200 1/30 f/4

Sadly, orange was not a colour in the band's pallette, so I had to look elsewhere, and finally, I found a tram which supplied the required orange:

Orange
ISO 200 1/60 f/9

This was my first part of the exercise done, though not the required one, I wanted to explore, mostly, colour through light, rather than reflected colour.  I wanted to do it this way as I thought I would arrive at colours which were 'cleaner' as they were not affected by colour influences from the sky and other reflective surfaces.  In the end, this did not quite succeed as the colours and the surfaces they were hitting did not provide the clean colours required.

In part 2 of Primary and Secondary colours, I will be following the exercise more closely in order satisfy the brief.

Exercise: Control the strength of colour

Objective:  to demonstrate how colour changes with exposure.

In this set of images, it is brightness which is being considered.

Brightness is the relative lightness or darkness of a particular color, from black (no brightness) to white (full brightness).  If the sequence of images were therefore to be extended in both direction, from over-exposure to under-exposure, then as expected, they would go from white through to black.

This is achieved by controlling the exposure at the time of shooting.  In the sequence below, the exposure was varied by half a stop.  The first exposure in the sequence being the setting given by the camera's lightmeter and the second receiving half a stop additional exposure; all the remaining exposures being progressively half a stop under exposed from the "norm".

1/125 sec at f/11
R80 G0 B14.1

Looking at the sequence the one thing which becomes apparent is that the quality of the colour changes.  In this case, red goes to pink when it is lighter so no longer is this the true colour. Using the percentage RGB shown in Lightroom, this can be seen as the values change significantly as the exposure varies.  These values are shown in each caption.  As exposure decreases  the Red value decreases significantly, so the Blue component becomes more significant.  Given time I will look at other colours in the same way to see how these colour shifts affect those colours with changes in exposure.  Reading the various reference texts, I have noted that yellow only varies between a medium and very light.  

1/125 sec at f/9.5
R89 G14.6 B19.5

1/125 sec at f/13
R70 G0 B9.1

1/125 sec at f/16
R57 G0 B9.9

1/125 sec at f/19
R44 G0 B10.9

Study Visit to the Gillian Wearing exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery

This was my first participation in a study visit, in this case to the exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery.  Gareth Dent and Clive White escorted quite a large group of students at the exhibition and guided us through an informal discussion on the work of the artist.

I have included a link to the photograph, Self Portrait at 17 Years old which features on the website and which is representative of the "family" series of self portraits.

But, to the beginning.  We were provided beforehand with information about the visit and some objectives.  The visit was to help students with:

• gaining a personal perspective on the work of Gillian Wearing;
• reflect on the experience of seeing photography and video in a gallery;
• network with other OCA students.

I'll work backwards through the objectives.

Networking - this certainly was achieved.  It was a great pleasure to meet Richard Down whom I recognised from blogs and from the OCA facebook site, in fact he recognised me first.  Social networking is certainly powerful!  Everybody I found to be really welcoming and friendly and we certainly had some pretty animated discussion over coffee! Many were working their way through TAOP or P&P, with Richard doing the Digital Film Production module

The experience of seeing photography and video in a gallery - I guess I am a relatively frequent visitor to galleries to view photographs, having first gone some 30 years ago to the Photographer's Gallery when it was in Great Newport Street!  The point here, however, was well made by Gareth in the context of this exhibition.  Would one have viewed the videos at home and would they have had the same impact as they clearly did at the Gallery.  I have to admit that I doubt if I would have viewed them at home.  Certainly the presentation of the videos in the gallery was done with great impact and it was clear that Gillian Wearing had  a considerable say in how the work was to be presented and viewed.  When you first walk in into the gallery, there are 4 constructions which house the video viewing areas.  Facing outwards the viewing areas are unfinished, bare wood, as though these were "backstage".  An interesting device which sets the tone for the exhibition.

The work of Gillian Wearing - Gillian Wearing's primary interest is in people and how they interact with the world by what is going on inside their mind. through the use of masks, and in the case of the self portrait as her brother, she gets under their skin.  Aside from the videos, which are a major part of her work, the still portraits and the "Signs that say what you want them to say, and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say", series from 1992, to me, are the most interesting.

Taking the "Signs....." series, it was great to be able to see such a large number together, some 70 images out of the 600 which she had shot.  This was the first time that I had seen these together in such a large number and certainly they create a great impression of how people think.  There is a whole mix of emotions there: sadness, despair and humour.  The choice of location, including the Peckham shopping centre site of her "dance" adds to the images.  There is a curious juxtaposition of people against backdrop - Pink Elephant Parking on Pink Elephant Road.......  sometimes taking away from the feelings of the subject. Its interesting how times have changed on the surface, but beneath, the same issues remain.  This is very much the front stage / back stage of an individual.  This is brought up to date on the Whitechapel Gallery's Facebook site with a "Tell Gillian 2012-03-02 23:20:23", where many have submitted images of themselves in a similar vein - GW then choosing her favourites on the Guardian web site.

The self portraits fall into 2 distinct series, those of GW self portraits, "under the skin" of those who influenced her and the "family album"

The "influencers" were Arbus (2008), Mapplethorpe (2009), Warhol in drag (2010), Cahun (2012) and Sander (2012).  To me particularly striking was her take on the Mapplethorpe self-portrait as shown in the orginal form below (Credit to the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation web-site):

Robert Mapplethorpe Self Portrait 1988

The "family album" series was fascinating, but I felt somewhat disturbing.  I found it difficult to accept the concept of taking on the persona of other members of the family.  A particular example of this was the self portrait as her mother, shown below:

This image in the particular mask, as seen in the gallery, seems particularly expressionless and reminds me of  a porcelain doll.  Visions of a horror movie came to mind.  Nevertheless, I could appreciate the performance which was being enacted through the images rather than a post-production image manipulation in Photoshop.  The artist's own touch is also displayed here as the family portraits are all of a different size, with different colour frames and hung at different levels on the wall as though in a family home.  The intention, by the artist was to portray all at roughly the same age which adds to the viewer's confusion.  Only the grandparents were at their "correct" age.

Regarding the movies / video recordings, there is, the performance / dance in Peckham shopping centre.  There was no sound the dance music coming from within her head.  To me there seemed to be very little reaction / interaction with passers-by, perhaps by virtue of the camera on the tripod and, presumably others who were doing the filming.  Could this be that the passers-by wished to be disassociated with this performance?

The most significant video, in my mind, was left for us to see at the end.  This was the film "10-16" where adults lip sync to the words spoken by children within that age range.  The selection of the adults was very particular and intended match the sometimes happy, sometimes confused voices and feelings of the children.  I loved the 10-year old and the vision of playing in a tree house was very strong, as was also at the other end the matched actor to the anxieties of the16-year old, who was disturbed through having been fat and was struggling to find his sexuality.  In this last one, there is a connection to GW, as she appears, initially in the frame perfectly still with her back to the viewer as though to signify that this was indeed an interview.  As she is so still, could that have been a mannequin made to look like her?

In between there was the series of videos "confessions" where members of the public had responded to an advertisement and "confess" from behind the anonymity of a mask.  The confessions were disturbing in themselves, not least also due to the grotesqueness of the masks.

In summary, an enjoyable visit which certainly met its objectives and very thought-provoking.  Would I recommend this exhibition - absolutely.  I found it difficult to describe my emotions on here, so you must go to see it and experience it yourself.

Colour Theory

There are two fundamental systems in use to describe primary colours; Additive and Subtractive. 

The first, Additive, is used to describe the three primaries where combinations of them will produce all the colours in the visible spectrum and where the three primary colours themselves, when mixed equally, will produce white light.  This is the greatest hint of all as to where these colours are found - they are the colours of transmitted light.  The primary colours are Red, Green and Blue (RGB) and they relate particularly to light, digital cameras and displays.  This is illustrated in the figure below.



Subtractive colours are so called, because when the three primaries used in this system are mixed together in equal parts, they produce Black.  A good way to remember this is that if you remove all light, then there is nothing left and "nothing" is typically associated with Black.  In digital terms, Black has the value 0 and White is represented by 255.

Subtractive colours are Cyan, Magenta and Yellow (CMY), as used in printing, or Red, Yellow and Blue (RYB) which are used in painting and in art theory.  In a later section of this part of TAOP, the colour wheel used will be that based on the painters primaries, RYB and their complementary opposites, which are green violet and orange.  In printing, these colours are also referred to as CMYK, where K stands for black, or originally "Key Plate".  The Key Plate, in printing, was that which was used to provide or enhance detail and contrast and was usually impressed in black ink

The way subtractive colours mix is shown in the illustration below.



The figures used above have both been obtained from Wikipedia and have been released into the public domain by their author.

Complementary and harmonious colours.

First of all a simple definition of primary colours, based on that given in the course text.  Primary colours are those which cannot be further broken down into other colours.

I have already used the term "complementary", so probably best to describe here what is meant by this.  Such colours are those which are located opposite to primaries in the colour wheel.  So with the RYB model, green is complementary to red, violet to yellow and orange to blue.  Where such colours appear in a photograph, they create maximum contrast (should I be using this word here as it could be misunderstood) and can create greatest impact.

Harmonious colours are those which are located alongside each other.  Why so called?  That is because there is some harmony between them; I've seen reference to such colours giving a sense of calm and peace, though this does not really equate with the way we see colours, with oranges and reds providing striking and vibrant images, warm looking, whereas blues and greens are cool and therefore frequently regarded as restful. Less saturated harmonious colours, regardless of whether they are "hot" or "cool" produce images which are restful.

TAOP Part Three: Colour

Colour is easily taken for granted.  After all, for most of us, the world is seen in colour, in its many qualities, and we also react to colour in many different ways.  When I was introduced to photography by my parents, the films used were predominantly black-and-white and colour was reserved for "high days and holidays".  Indeed, the reproduction of colour, even to me as a child, seemed very poor, though this might have something to do with the camera used at the time - a Kodak Duaflex 2!  Certainly there seemed to be no objection to viewing the world in monochrome.  50 years on, monochrome is generally regarded as "arty" and colour is the norm.  We even accept that colour can be and is manipulated, particularly where advertising is concerned, or in almost any publication.

For many years we have accepted the way the world is reproduced by artists, whether as paintings or in print.  Here, artists have mixed colours, available as pigments, in order to produce on canvas their perception of how a scene looks in colour.

This part of TAOP addresses the basic properties of colour, learning how to control, alter and modify them in photography and to use them as an element of design.

The use of colour in design, and in particular the psychology of colour is something which is of particular interest to me and I shall be exploring that further in my learning blog.

In this section I have made use of a variety of reading matter, not least making use of that source of all knowledge - Google.  Its amazing how many articles and other works can be found by typing in "psychology of colour" as a search term!  Wikipedia has also made a contribution to my understanding.

To be honest, I almost had too much in the way of references, however these did stimulate my interest.  I was particularly interested in Pantone, and that they had been acquired in 2007 by X-Rite, who produce Colormunki, the monitor and printer calibration system.  I use Colormunki to calibrate both monitor and printer.

From the Pantone web site, I quote: "In 1963, Lawrence Herbert, Pantone's founder, created an innovative system of identifying, matching and communicating colors to solve the problems associated with producing accurate color matches in the graphic arts community. His insight that the spectrum is seen and interpreted differently by each individual led to the innovation of the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM®, a book of standardized color in fan format."  The range and interpretation of colour by Pantone, is just incredible, but realistically beyond what I am trying to achieve here.

Delving into the Epson book is again outside the scope of this part of TAOP, more likely to be relevant in the Module "Digital Photographic Practice", however the book contains a lot of images which are great examples of use of design through form and colour and provide ideas and inspiration.

My references for this section include:

• OCA TAOP course notes - Part three: Colour;
• Basic Colour Theory - OCA Photography Course Supplement; 
• Colour, Michael Freeman, ILEX, 2005;
• The essential colour manual for photographers, Chris Rutter, Rotovision SA, 2006; 
• Methuen Handbook of Colour, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1981;
• Colour, Marshall Editions Limited, 1983;
• EPSON Complete Guide to Digital Printing, Rob Sheppard, Lark Books, 2008; 
• Pantone, www.pantone.com