As oppose of my previous article: Why I love black and White Photo!, In this post I will write more about the way I shoot colour in street photography.
Biggest advantage of shooting colour instead of monochrome is we have one extra element to translate the emotion/mood/energy from our photo through colour match. Personally, colour match is all about combination of colours that able to evoke a certain emotion/mood/energy from viewer’s mind.
General rule of blending colours are using big part of cool colours (blue, green, and purple) with small part of warm colours (orange, yellow, and red). Although from my experience, this is not always be the case.
Here are some essential points about how to to create a strong visual impact by use colour in street photography:
Bright light and bright colours
Bright light is our best friend to create image with strong colours. The stronger the light intensity, usually will lead better result of our colour image.
Simple idea: Try to search area that hit directly by sun light. Focus on clean surface area (like wall) that have bright colours like red, yellow or orange.
Bright colours will reflect light well, therefore the result is more “pop” compare to dark colours. Imagine in two images above, if the wall’s colours is dark grey or dark blue, the colours will not give strong impact to audience’s eyes.
Shoot one particular colour
Focus on one colour, then try to match this particular colour from one object/subject to other things. For example like in photo above, I was standing on yellow road marking, use fishing technique, and start to search any yellow objects around. Then I tried to shot any yellow objects with yellow road marking work as background.
These objects could be anything, yellow shoes, yellow bag, yellow jacket, yellow pants, etc. As long as we can get “one colour match” scene.
Do not get confuse by so many colours that we see in front of us. Always narrow down our view, focus on a specific colour. Instead of try to capture everything inside a photo, better to capture detail of attractive subject/object. For example: When we see an attractive subject, try to quick scan which part of him/her that really has attractive point, then shot only that part, not their whole appearance.
Use one particular colour to create relation between subject. Match them, use it as “similarity” object to create stronger visual impact.
Blend multiple colours
Blend two or more colours that have strong contrast. Check Colour Wheel for more accurate information about complement colour schemes.
Generally, we want to blend warm vs cool colours on the same scene. Like blue vs yellow or red vs green. Of course the content and composition inside our photo still (super) important. Contrast “colour match” will help our image to catch audience’s eyes easier as they produce more “pop-out” feeling.
A scene with contrast colour schemes will help viewer to easily catch which part is the main subject/object and which part are only for complement elements.
Same as previous point, we also can blend two or more particular colour to create relation between subject/object. Match them, use it as “similarity” artistic object to create stronger visual impact. Like in photo above, similarity between yellow clothes, yellow road markings, yellow shoes, orange traffic cone, and orange colour on his clothes.
Shoot only one specific colour
Be minimalism, shoot only one particular colour. Be (super) selective with scene that we want to shoot. To help achieve minimalism mood, try to create mysterious subject by shoot them as silhouette or shadow.
Always remember this one particular colour is our primary artistic object inside phot. Therefore, choose bright colour with strong light intensity to make it look “pop-out”.
Strongest colour: RED!
The strongest colour from them all: Red! Simply because red has the longest wavelength (about 700 nanometers long), which is means, in real world, human eyes are really sensitive to see red colour. (I think also the main reason why “stop sign” in traffic light is in red colour)
If I have chance to pick one colour to shot on a scene (let’s say all other aspects are equal), then red will always my number one choice. Combine with bright light, red colour will add more dramatic effect and attract people’s eyes compare to any other colours.
Shoot at (before) sunrise or (after) sunset time
We all know how beautiful our sun at sunrise and sunset time. Beautiful golden colours that beg to captured as a colour photo.
However, to create even more surreal feeling, try to use shoot at before sunrise or after sunset to get unique sky colours. (Here, in Indonesia, generally we can get blue or violet sky colours).
That is all my thought about shooting street with colours. Try to do experiment yourself and pick your favourite colours to create a strong photograph!
Keep shooting everyday,
Nico Harold