How To Take Really Happy Photos With A Reduced Color Palette
Richard and Rachel Gray, really happy photo with a reduced color palette.
Color is the most fundamental aspect of composition. Color has meaning and photos composed around color are great fun to make. It’s even possible to take really happy photos with a reduced color palette.
During a big clean up, following a flood at my place, I discovered some old photos I’d made during the first few months of 1986.
It was my first year of formal photography study and I was staying with my eldest sister, Maree, and her family in the Melbourne suburb of Box Hill South.
I’d been given an assignment, to produce three photographs that explored the color green.
It seemed like a dumb idea at the time and it wasn’t until the night before it was due that, with the help of my brother in law, Steve, I got it together.
I made a pic of a watermelon with a face cut into it. The pinkish red of the fruit’s flesh made a strong color contrast with the green on the outside of the fruit.
The above image, the second in the series, featured Maree’s two oldest kids: Rachel and Richard. Her youngest child, Patrick, was a chubby bubby at the time.
The image was made in a few short minutes under the shade of a beautiful maple tree in the family’s front yard.
The green, leafy yard provided the perfect background. The kid’s green school uniforms were an added bonus.
It was then simply a matter of adding some extra green colored props (cordial, cups, serviettes and fruit) to complete the scene.
My niece, Rachel, dressed in green.
Color Photography Is Fun
The above image features Rachel, dressed in emerald green and adorned with green nail polish, posing in front of the bathroom mirror.
I remember how very patient and co-operative Rachel was while I worked to make the photo.
In fact both the kids were great fun to work with and I’m so glad I’ve re-discovered these old images.
While they’re far from portfolio standard they’re great keepsakes that allow us all to remember our time living together in their families former home.
Both Rachel and Richard have families of their own now. I wonder what their kids will think of these photos, now and in years to come.
Rachel is now an experienced and highly regarded secondary school teacher, while Richard is well and truly making his way as a director, writer and producer in Hollywood.
Richie set up the company Yellow Brick Films with his wife and creative partner, Michele Gray. Over the years Richie has made a bunch of motion picture films including the following:
Mind Games with Jason Momoa
Robert The Bruce written by and starring Angus Macfadyen
Murder at Yellowstone with a cast including Richard Dreyfuss and Gabriel Byrne
Unholy Trinity (soon to be released) starring Samuel L. Jackson and Pierce Brosnan.
But, back then, Richie was a typical six year old boy. He had a love for cartoons and was a very competitive backyard cricket player. Somewhere along the line he began supporting Carlton in the Australian Football League. Frankly, that’s a decision I’ve never understood.
Rachel, who I guess was eight years old at the time these photos were made, was highly organized, very bright and a talented piano player. I hope that’s a hobby she’ll take up again at some stage in the future.
Richard was full of life and energy, a beautiful child who loved his mother very much. Rachel was a delightful girl. In fact she was perfect.
Make Images Based Around Color
If you’re feeling like your own photography is a bit stale of late, perhaps it’s worth trying a green, red or blue color assignment for yourself. If, like me, you’re a big Mace Windu fan, you might opt for purple.
Of course you could take it further as color is also cultural. Depending on the culture in question the color white can become a metaphor that can suggest completely different things.
In western culture white is usually associated with baptisms and weddings. In China the color white has traditionally been associated with funerals.
Likewise, green is associated with Islam and the color orange with the Dutch.
When I revisit familiar places I sometimes limit myself to a single focal length (e.g., 24 mm wide-angle or 100 mm Macro) lens to force myself to see the familiar anew.
Whatever challenge you set yourself will help revive your enthusiasm and broaden your vision. Go on, feed your creativity.
Both images in this post were photographed with a Nikon FE camera and Nikon 35 mm f/2 lens on Agfachrome CT precisa 100 film.
The original transparencies were scanned prior to processing, long ago, in Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop.
Expand Your Understanding Of Color Photography
I’ve written a number of posts on this site relating to the theory and application of color to improve the photos you make. All of these posts are instructional, some are particularly comprehensive, and all are illustrated with beautiful travel photography from around our beautiful world.
Here’s a few particularly interesting posts dealing with color and how to apply it in your own photography. I do hope you’ll check them out and that they help you along your own journey creating more interesting and evocative photos, more often.
