Colour Relationships

For this exercise I decided to set out for a relatively early shoot around Birmingham. I arrived and parked the car before 8am on Saturday, which meant the city was fairly quiet and peaceful. The plan was to stroll around various parts of the city centre, looking for scenes/people/objects that had an element of narrative, and that also fit the colour ratios specified in the brief. This is the first time I have approached a city in this way, without a clear destination (the bank, or shops etc), and I was amazed at how much more you see when you are looking carefully at the world around you, especially with your photographer's head on. I began seeing stories behind small things like discarded litter, wondering who had left it there, why they had left it, and where they were going or coming back from at the time. My journey also took me down unfamiliar routes, my curiousness taking me off the main paths to places less desirable to the average person such as the back-alleys of stores and restaurants with their large rubbish containers and open back doors from which emanated the smells and sounds of the business within, while the gentle hum of the light foot-traffic in the main streets faded to almost nothing.

52mm, f/5.6, 1/400, ISO 400

This is one of my favourite images I took that day and one which I am considering putting forward as part of my assignment. The red and green are more or less in equal proportions (1:1) and both are equally muted, keeping the complimentary colours balanced. The relationship is not as strong as if the colours were pure, though as seen in the course materials pure colours in the real world are rare, and broken colours abound. The person sitting with his back to the camera provides the narrative - it is not clear from this angle what he is doing; eating breakfast, looking at his phone or a book, or just waiting. I also like the diagonal cutout of the pathway, with white edging which adds some dynamism to the image, along with the off-centre positioning of the subject.

55mm, f/8, 1/320, ISO 400

This image offers a representation of the colour relationship between orange and blue at the stated ratio of 1:2. What makes this image more complex than the red/green one above is that although the blue in this image is in one large solid block, the orange is scattered throughout the frame, in the form of the traffic cones, the barrier, and the workman's trousers. The brightness and saturation of the various oranges aren't the same however; the cones are bathed in shade and the barrier is a very muted colour, but the trousers are very bright, and due to the positioning in the scene are catching the sunlight. Due to this I feel the main dynamic is between the blue vehicle and the trousers. The relationship is softened due to the white building and grey tarmac, although the barrier seems to mitigate this somewhat by bridging the gap.

This image also has a narrative element; the workman has a jacket on, implying that he has finished working for the time being, perhaps heading to the coffee lounge in the centre of the frame for refreshment.

50mm, f/4.5, 1/400, ISO 400

When I first arrived at this scene, I was firstly drawn to the orange and blue complimentary combination of the gentleman in the foreground's footwear. Being a street scene however, the environment was dynamic, and a girl moved into the top of the frame carrying a bright yellow balloon. This bright, distinct object immediately caught my attention, and I took a burst of frames, keeping the man in the foreground for context and image depth. The colour of the girl's top wasn't the exact hue needed to be valid for this exercise, and as I really enjoy this image decided to make some adjustments in photoshop using the 'polygonal lasso' tool and the hue adjustment slider. I believe this to be a perfectly valid use of available tools in order to adjust already present colours to strengthen an image further. This image in fact became a bit of a photoshop learning and practice exercise, as I also removed a couple of small distracting details from the picture using 'content-aware fill' and the 'clone-stamp' tool.

In terms of the yellow-to-violet ratio, even though the girl's top isn't quite big enough in comparison to the balloon to represent a ratio of 1:3, the detail on her leggings are of similar purple/violet/dark blue hues, which in my mind form a continuation of the top, and taken as a whole is perceived as the required ratio.      

48mm, f/5.6, 1/250, ISO 400

The good colour contrast in this image is what initially caught my eye. The yellow cone and green bollard are the primary objects in the scene, with the colour ratio being approximately 1:2. The cone is substantially brighter than the bollard, and it is this which mainly draws the eye, although being 'similar' colours on the wheel this dynamism is more muted than a similar image with contrasting colours. As I analysed the scene more, trying to determine what attracted me so much, I realised there was a subtle interplay between the strong, upright bollard, and the wonky cone, ironically displaying 'police'. Further compositional structure in the image includes the diagonals of the double-yellow lines and red bricks, the former creating a triangle with the bollard and the bottom of the frame.

52mm, f/8, 1/50, ISO 400

There are two distinct primary colours in this image and as such they aren't 'contrasting' colours in the truest sense, however they are still far apart on the colour wheel. Goethe's light values places red at 6, and blue at 4, meaning for balance there should be more blue than red. This is the case in this image, although maybe not to exact proportions. This colour combination is the main draw in this image with less of a focus on narrative, although it leaves you with a sense of an environmentally-concious city, with the bicycle and flower juxtaposition, and wondering who left the bike there and where they went afterwards.

55mm, f/8, 1/125, ISO 400

The three primary colours red, yellow and blue are all represented in this image. In terms of purity, the red and yellow are both close, but the blue of the jeans is more subtle. To me this image presents an example of accented colour, with the yellow a very bright but small portion of the whole frame, especially against the dark green background foliage. Compositionally the curved edge of the fountain leads the eye through the frame and adds a sense of movement. The green foliage at the top of the frame and the green reflections in the water sandwich the other colours and components creating a natural frame.

55mm, f/8, 1/1600, ISO 400

This image was initially for my red/green 1:1 image, but I thought I'd include it here as the different brightness's of the two colours here create a feeling of unbalance, with the green darker than pure, and the red lighter than pure. The red appears slightly smaller, mitigating this somewhat, but I really enjoy this contrast in brightness between the complimentary colours, especially against the white background. 

The table, chairs and menu in the scene appear discarded, giving rise to speculation on the state of the business now.