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Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings Kathy Lawler, Guest Blogger [This post is an elaboration on the fourth point I made in my post of November 10, 2015 Five ways to raise your photo IQ (Interest Quotient)] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Basic Color Wheel ShowingPrimary and Complementary Colors Color is a complicated subject — I’ve touched on it before — and is one of the five biggies in a photograph — along with focus, composition, lighting, and your hook. There are countless articles you can read on Color Theory; it seems you can spend a lifetime studying color interplay. But it is very helpful to know what colors work well together and why. As we saw recently with the blue/black or white/gold dress fiasco, color is powerful and varied — given how the image is photographed, and on how you, the viewer, interpret the colors. The original dress photo was overexposed and the white balance was off. While this phenomenon was interesting for a few minutes, you don’t want your images to be this misunderstood. Here the basic color wheel shows the relationship between colors. You will find that knowing and considering even the basics of color and color wheels can help make your photos dynamic. Let’s discuss how to use this understanding to your advantage. The language surrounding color can be a mystery so let’s take a look at a few terms that will help you.
How these characteristics work together is what you want to consider to help you to create a dramatic image. The color wheel will help you think about color in an organized way and will explain how colors can be combined for a variety of effects. If you are a nature photographer, the good news is that nature does at lot of this stuff for you, your job is to capture it. For studio work you will need to put a little more consideration into your backgrounds and set-ups. Here is a basic color wheel that shows the relationship between colors. You will find that knowing and considering even the basics of color and color wheels can help make your photos dynamic. Let’s discuss how to use this understanding to your advantage.  Steel Hibiscus [credit: Chris Fedderson] Yellow/Purple to Blue/Orange color relationships  Red/Green Color Combination Here are few types of dynamic color combinations to experiment with: Complimentary colors — these are opposite each other on the color wheel and can create striking color combinations. For example, a red flower against green leaves produces a beautiful contrast.  Analogous and Complimentary ColorsWorking Together Analogous colors are next to each other on the color wheel and are pleasing combinations and often occur in nature. Think of fall leaves: red, orange, and yellow. Now pair that with a blue sky and you have used complimentary with analogous colors. Stunning! Just look here!  Warm (orange) vs. Cool (blue) interaction Warm colors vs. cool colors. These can make an object recede or move forward in the image. Imagine how powerful that could be in your image! You may think you don’t have control over the color in your images as you shoot images in nature or how you set up a photo shoot. This is where some color knowledge, and what you consider when shooting, comes into play.
Are you shooting a red flower and your angle has you shooting against dirt? If so, consider adjusting your angle to put a better color combination or a more dynamic one into the background. If you looked at the flower from a different angle — from the right or left or higher or lower — perhaps there is a better background color with which you can compliment the red flower. Are there green leaves in the background on one side if you bend down and shoot from the side rather than from the top? Warm colors, red and yellow for example, will advance in a scene (look to be more in the foreground) vs. cool colors, blues and greens, will recede (appear more in the background). You can see how important considering color combinations is and how they will influence the outcome of your images. These are just a few basic color combination examples, but you will learn as you study color which combinations give you the look you are striving for; the look that is unique to your work. And, as always, breaking the rules after you learn them is what leads to your unique look and feel. And it’s fun. Happy coloring! Thank You for visiting, — Kathy Lawler, guest blogger P.s. Experiment with unusual combinations and tell us how these worked out. What are your favorite color combinations? What do they “do” for you? Have you noticed the occurrence of the use of any color-play in life? [… think Denny’s color scheme] What affect did these uses produce?
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Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Are you ridiculously wealthy? Then stop reading now. You can afford whatever you want.  But if you’re one of the rest of us, then money matters. And if your dream camera is just a bit out of your reach, do not despair... you don’t need to get every piece of equipment that you want, right now. I acquired the six pieces shown here over the course of a few years. [Olympus E-30 body; 50-200 Telephoto-Zoom; Extension tube; Flash (ring not shown); Cable release; Tripod with ball head and quick release brackets] Also, as for your 'right now' purchases, you have options and alternatives . . . You can shop for last year’s model, demo/open box, used, or refurbished cameras, lenses, accessories, and more. There are pros and cons to each option so figure out what features are — and are not — negotiable among the voices in your head, and then start shopping!
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Adorama, one of the big online camera / computer / video / etc. sources, published a good article recently talking on this subject and which offers a more in-depth treatment of it… But what if you’re not a photo-gearhead and don’t yet know exactly what camera and lens you want? Rent one! Yes, you can rent cameras of all kinds so you can try out various makes and models, kick the tires, take them for a spin, see what your friends think. You’ll likely refine your list of wants, desires, must-haves, don’t-needs, etc., so when you do purchase you’ll be more on the mark regarding what equipment you actually want and need. Not to mention you’ll become a whole lot more comfortable in the vast world of Cameradom so you and your soon-to-be-purchased new camera will start your life together a step or two ahead on the familiarity curve. Thank You for visiting, — Chris P.s. Did you go with one of these options? I hope it went well, but tell us if it didn’t, we can all use the insight. Did you rent and refine your wish-list? Did you change your first choice to one better suited to you? Let us all know in the comments and we’ll compare notes. Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings [This post is an elaboration on the third point I made in my post of November 10, 2015, Five ways to raise your photo IQ (Interest Quotient)] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But not just any light . . . Is it sunlight? Fluorescent light? Candle light? Side light? Back light? Bright light? Diffused light? Colored light? Mottled light? Half-shadowed light? It gets worse… what temperature is the light? I don’t mean is it a hot day or a freezing day, but rather, what is the Kelvin Color Temperature? From Wikipedia: The color temperature of a light source is the temperature of an ideal black-body radiator that radiates light of comparable hue to that of the light source. What does that mean?! Yeah, I don’t know either. At least not in all its Technicolor Glory. In general terms, though, the Color Temperature that White Balance refers to is where a particular light falls on a scale from warm to cool, and covering this fully would be a book in itself. Your camera manual will likely have a chart showing this relationship — at least with regard to how it meshes with your camera’s setting choices. I’ve shown a simple chart here, but if you really want to read in-depth, you might start with Wikipedia or these guys or maybe these other guys.  Color 'Temperature' Chart Since I do most of my shooting outside in daylight, and since daylight white balance is probably the easiest color temperature for the camera to determine, I often delegate this chore to the camera’s computer. I use Auto-WB a vast majority of the time. But, I do look at the different WB settings available to see what differences it might make. These shots show the camera overlaying the menu control on the monitor image to give you an indication of what the specific WB setting will produce. It is only an indication, though, so experiment to see how this might enhance your imagery.  White Balance Settings note the differences in warm vs. cool tones
You can also set a custom WB. Probably most applicable to strict studio work where you don’t have pure daylight but maybe a mix of daylight from a window (a very, variable light source) mixed with artificial light from incandescent or fluorescent lights of who-knows-what temperature, and possibly your flash added in. You’ll find the instructions to do this in your camera manual. So after all that, you decided to just use Auto White Balance? OK, but you’re not out of the woods, yet! There are still potential issues related to an over abundance of — or lack of — light on and around your subject, i.e., the quantity of light.
These problems can all be addressed by one, or both, of two solutions. You need to either add light or you need to reduce light at a given spot. I’m not going to cover flash here — that, too, could be a book in itself — but rather some techniques for rearranging the available light; for bringing light to a subject and for reducing the light falling on your subject. Of course you can buy all sorts of reflectors, shades, umbrellas, diffusers, and don’t even start talking about light sources! But you can also do a very serviceable job with little-to-no expense.
When you want to expand on these light-altering techniques, there are more things you can try: metering tricks, exposure compensation, and of course, flash and other external light sources. So try everything you can think of, and have fun experimenting!  Lily Grace photo Credit: C. Fedderson This image, Lily Grace, shows use of metering to achieve unique lighting. I’ll cover use of metering in a future post . . . So Don’t Touch That Dial!
Thank You for visiting, — Chris P.s. What really Outside-the-Box things did you try? What worked? What didn’t? What gave you great — unexpected — results? What are you going to try next?  A Daisy ChrysanthemumPhoto Credit: C. Fedderson Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. — Georgia O'Keeffe, (1887-1986) Flowers are amazing. From the intricate ways they work with pollinators to ensure fertilization, to the outlandish measures — and mechanisms — they use to trap food (carnivorous plants), to the range of fragrances (stenches?) that they exude, to the endless variations in their appearance, to the… Even the ‘simple’ daisy is really not so simple. Back in high school biology with Mr. Stanford (one of the best teachers of the day, by the way, in case his family is reading) I learned that daisies and the like are in the family Compositae meaning composite flowers. Apparently, botanists are now referring to this family as Asteraceae. According to Wikipedia, these flowers have a flower head that “is a special type of inflorescence, in which anything from a small cluster to hundreds or sometimes thousands of flowers are grouped together to form a single flower-like structure”. So ‘a’ daisy is really a bazillion daisies. Who knew? What is equally intriguing is how we interpret flowers; what meanings we give to them. We all know what he means when he brings you a dozen red roses. But what of a single yellow rose or a white rose or… shudder… a black rose. Here, the rose is the messenger we employ to deliver our sentiments. But we also have attributed significance and symbolism to flowers that are more ethereal, meant to speak directly to the viewer rather than to be used to convey a message to another person. We have done this with Passion Flowers. I always thought the name had something to do with Love or Lust or an extreme attachment to, or involvement with, someone or something. Maybe it meant that if they grew wild in your yard then someone really loved you … or something like that. So I Googled it… Turns out all the various parts — the stigmas, the anthers, the pistils, the petals, — were likened to various aspects of the Crucifixion of Christ. Yikes! Mighty heady message for a flower to bear! So, here’s the deal… According to the website LocalHarvest, “The spiraled tendons of the plant, he” (Patrick Jesse Pons-Worley, author of The Passionfruit Cookbook) “notes, were taken as symbols of the lashes Christ endured, and the central flower column as the pillar of the scourging. The 72 radial filaments of the flower were seen as the crown of thorns; the three stigmas as symbols of the nails used in the crucifixion, as well as the holy Trinity; the five anthers, as the five wounds of Christ; and the style as the sponge doused in vinegar used to moisten Christ’s lips. Taken together, the five petals and five sepals were used to refer to the ten apostles who did not either betray or deny Christ. The fragrance of the flower, continued Pons-Worley, helped recall the spices used to embalm the body of Christ. Finally, its globular egg-size fruit was taken as a symbol of the world that Christ saved through his suffering.” Additionally, the site Passion Flower Basket says, “The dark spots under the leaves represent the 33 pieces of silver that the Romans paid Judas for betraying Christ. When the passion flower has bloomed and spent its energy in a day (the time that Jesus suffered on the cross), the petals do not fall off but close around the ovary. To Catholics, this represents the hidden mysteries of the cross and the entombment of Christ after his crucifixion. Extending the analogy even further, the passiflora’s round fruit symbolize the world that Christ came to save and its red stains the blood of Christ shed with the crucifixion.”  Tapestry Photo Credit: C. Fedderson So, there you have it. The most intricate and heady an attribution I have ever heard of being assigned to a flower. I enjoy them simply for their ridiculous physical complexity. All the crazy parts and colors. Wow!
Thank You for visiting, — Chris P.s. What is your favorite flower? Why? Does it have a special significance relating to your life? Do you just find it pleasing to look at or smell? Is it that you enjoy the butterflies or animals it attracts. Do you know of another story of attribution-to-a-flower like the one for Passion Flowers? Or Dudes, maybe you like ‘em just cuz ‘Chicks dig flowers’…? ;-D Let us know your thoughts and we’ll all compare notes. |
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About Chris
I am a Virginia-based photographer and gather my images while hiking in parks and natural areas here at home and in the locations I travel to. I also love to visit arboretums and botanic gardens to find unusual and exotic subjects. Archives
March 2017
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