Spirit of Photography

Mentoring and Learning => Weekly Photography Assignments => Topic started by: Michele on January 11, 2012, 03:39:00 AM

Title: "Isolating One Color", Weekly Photography Assignment for January 11 - 22, 2012
Post by: Michele on January 11, 2012, 03:39:00 AM

Colors are the key to conveying mood and emotion.  A limited, muted color scheme, such as cool blues and greens, can give an overall feeling of peace.  Highly contrasting bright colors can give an instant impression of energy and excitement.

In this assignment, let's try and isolate a strong color against a muted background to emphasize the shape of an object or the perspective in a scene.  Or, you might try picking out a small area of color within a sea of contrasting colors and use it as a focal point.

Isolating a color can be very, very powerful.  If you ever saw "Schindler's List", I am reminded of the little girl wearing the red coat.  Spielberg used a black and white format for this movie but every once in a while a sub-story was stressed by the red from that little girl's coat.  

Although there was a time when that type of photo style was very trendy, the black and white background and one color highlighting the theme (usually done using an editing tool), this is not exactly what I mean.  Using the movie was just an extreme way to make my point.

Making a color stand out by composing your photo around it can be a very strong tool to emphasize an emotion.

For example, a marathon of runners wearing many exciting colors, the yellow lines on the street could be the focus point to emphasize the event.

Or perhaps the red of a sports car.

[img width= height=]http://spiritofphotography.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10214/car.jpg[/img]

The yellow in this owl's eyes.

[img width= height=]http://spiritofphotography.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10214/owl.jpg[/img]

The yellow of this leaf caught in the ice.

[img width= height=]http://spiritofphotography.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10214/leaf.jpg[/img]

Or this one flower that stands out above the rest.  (Even though it really is higher than the others)

[img width= height=]http://spiritofphotography.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10214/tulip.jpg[/img]

I think that doing this assignment will help us compose a better image by paying more attention to how the colors in the background can impact our focus point and vice versa.

Please upload your photos to the "Isolating One Color" folder by January 22, 2012.

Title: Re: "Isolating One Color", Weekly Photography Assignment for January 11 - 22, 2012
Post by: prairiedust on January 12, 2012, 01:06:44 PM

Great assignment Michele, thanks for putting this up.

Title: Re: "Isolating One Color", Weekly Photography Assignment for January 11 - 22, 2012
Post by: marilyn on January 12, 2012, 03:28:06 PM

I love this idea too.  My eyes are on the look-out for naturally occurring opportunities if possible.......