Colour is how we see. As photographers, a great way to enhance our images is to shoot for colour. Colour makes us feel certain things, think of how a sunset makes you feel, or the azure blue waters of a tropical sea. We are designed to see colour and our photography can become so much more impactful when we understand this.
When we photograph, we tend to take colour for granted because IT IS how we see. A great exercise is to go out and decide to photography only a specific colour, it could be red or blue or green, whatever you choose. Or you could shoot only primary colours. What this will force you to do creatively, is look for specific colours. It will also show you how we are surrounded by colour, everywhere.
Jay Maisel (one of my favourite photographers) says he looks for three things whenever he is out photographing…they are: Light, Gesture and Colour. He has this to say about colour –
“Color is seductive. It changes as it interacts with other colors, it changes because of the light falling upon it, and it changes as it becomes larger in size. This last aspect can be seen in the tears and rage of anyone who has chosen a color based on a two-inch sample and painted an entire room in it.”
Jay Maisel from the book Light, Gesture, Color
Colour gives us context and it gives us content. If someone says they were eating a delicious apple, that paints a picture in our minds, but if they say they are eating a delicious red apple…that gives us so much more context, we can actually taste that.
One of the best pieces of advice I received about colour was this..fill the frame with it. Make it the reason for your image. The beauty is, colour is all around us, waiting to be photographed, use it to tell a story, use it to fill your frame. Your images will be that much more impactful and powerful because of it!