How to use the power of colour properly in Landscape Photography

hi welcome back to the studio in this week's video we're going to be looking at the compositional consequences of color is something that seems obvious but it is really really important because the human brain is very very easy to manipulate and we are drawn to warm colors and we tend to skim over cooler colors so in this week's video I'm going to be spending some time in Iceland with some photographs I've taken over the years there and we're going to use color to kind of move our viewers around the frame in a very powerful and provocative way so let's get on with it [Music] [Music] so if we take this image as an example we can see from the histogram that it's a very low contrast image there are no deep shadows and there are no highlights and what that really means is low contrast low impact now when I was there it felt quite impactful but this is taken at 340 millimeters from quite a distance away so it felt very distant and very compressed so the first thing I'm going to do with this photograph is grab my black point and pull it in until I get some clipping and right there in the foreground and then I'm gonna pull in my white points and do the same until I guess I'm clipping up there in the fog and then back off that has introduced a huge amount of contrast and we can see that the colors have come alive there is a very definite relationship between contrast and color more contrast more color more impact more engagement if I darken this in the mid-tones so if I just pull that down somewhat you will see that once again more contrast more color more saturation this is now instantly way more engaging than it was just 30 seconds ago and what I want to look at here is just using the temperature slider if I just do like a mid-tone correct so that's just using the white balance picker to just correct I suppose for the neutrality of the image we have some warm areas and we have some cool areas if I take the temperature slider and just nudge it down a few points it now feels almost like nights are starting to fall or it might have been taken under moonlight or something like that the psychological impact of just that temperature change changes the feel of the image sometimes when I'm demonstrating these things I overdo it just so a bit more obvious if I pull that back just a fraction we've got will still got some coolness there but it's not quite as cool if I just warm this image a couple of points and take it back into that the sun's out type of feel if I look now at creating a transition from cool to warm this is homogenous at the moment when we make global adjustments it's all over it's the whole image that's being adjusted if I was to pull a gradient up from the bottom and if I turn on the O key there you can see that we've created a gradient if I just cool the foreground slightly and again I don't want to go too far with that the impact of that the compositional consequence of that is that our I know skims over that foreground and takes us more up into those rich swirling sweet paying lava flows as soon as you introduce a transition from cool to warm the eye wants to get to the warm bit we'll have a look at some other examples and we'll see the compositional consequences of bringing in these transitions but for now that's another lava so when we think about color in the landscape we're drawn obviously to everyone talks about sunsets everyone talks about dramatic light everyone talks about contrast of light and the nuances of light and what I wanted to do here is I've created a selection of just some of my Iceland images taken over the years and some of them are definitely on the cool side particularly on days where it was overcast and cloudy and some are really quite vibrant and dynamic and warm color do you know sunrise sunsets that type of thing know what I want to talk about in this portion is the compositional consequences of color because we're that warm light is in the frame should it exist it becomes a very powerful influence whereas if it's absent and we generally have a cool or monochromatic color space then we are relying on other compositional elements to create the dynamics so if I come into this selection as you can see it's quite diverse my propensity for squares is again very evident there's a couple of four by 5's in there and I think there's one full frame and one sixteen by nine now if we look along the top row here this is an image that has very little in the way of warm color the top might have a fraction of lavender asur something but essentially the most colorful thing in the frame is that blue iceberg in the center and that becomes the draw it's the colorful thing it's the dynamic thing and it's the thing that is drawing our attention and the fact that I put it in the center of the frame only goes to emphasize the importance of it as a compositional element now this is another image where the the absence of warm colors demands other things in the frame to create a dynamic and again I've chosen a piece of ice that's quite angular if we kind of zoom into this thing you can see how kind of alien it is it's absolutely stunning is I personally love that and it doesn't really come across in a small image but the dynamics of that area of the frame are enough for me to engage me the compositional consequences so the overall image is quite monochromatic but there's enough tan in the ice and the flowing water to create that angularity and energy again the image is placing the mean subject in the center of the frame now this is another example of more or less the same concept a complete lack of warm colors but we have angular and dynamic flowing water and dynamic angular content now if I take the lights out here and go into the develop module and just emphasize some of this stuff so if I this grab a brush and increase the Y's texture clarity and just paint in that bit of the iceburg and increase the saturation you can see that we're drawing the eye even more into that part of the frame should we take the saturation down that area of the frame diminishes we can use color we can use saturation we can use contrast we can use luminosity all of these things are powerful triggers to our imagination and the way that we see the world I've introduced some warm colors into this particular photograph and I think that this illustrates the point perfectly well that we are drawn to the warmer side of things the first thing we notice is that beautiful warm light through the back of the of the of the ice hole here and the way it's been processed is to make the the coolness of the Berek juxtaposed with the warmth of the light and if I were to just come in again and increase the Y's and the saturation of this reflected area and maybe just add a touch of exposure so that we can see that reflection better we can add some warmth to that as soon as you start adding more color more luminosity we actually get to the point where our engagement for that particular part of the frame is increased color is such a powerful trigger warm light in particular we can just gravitate towards it now this is a curious one I loved this photograph when I first came across this little iceberg on the beach and it reminded me of Cinderella's slipper and I got very excited about it because it was just this beautiful glass slipper in the middle of this black Beach but the the way I've used the color and this photograph in particular is we've got this warm kind of late sunset type of sky juxtaposed with this blue reflected light that's coming through the iceberg and what does me is that the overall scene itself has a kind of optimistic uplifting warmth to it but the subject itself is quite austere it feels quite a classy thing and this is the curious emotional compositional consequence of using color in certain ways is that should that be less blue and we can do that just with a simple gradient and this is going to be a little bit clumsy because obviously this is a worked image but if I were to take some of that blueness out of that barrack something like that now the color harmony between the barrack and the sky may feel a little bit more in tune add a little bit more harmonious but this the the glass slipper itself feels just not quite as luxurious as perhaps at once did and this could all just be my imagine should we move forward this is a generally warmer image again we're using the warm light as an engaging powerful metaphor it's something that just draws the eye right through the frame into the background but again if I was to bring up a grid in here and cool that foreground just a little touch then we're in a situation where it feels completely different color is our best friend and the only thing you really need to realize is that we have an experiential relationship with color we can do what colors are exist out there in the landscape and should you cross those lines people started thinking hmm that doesn't look very real and that's the only thing you really need to remember is remember where the line in the sand is I like this photograph I remember this deer very very clearly and again it's a juxtaposition between warm light and cool light or I will always get drawn to those luminous areas so the big iceberg in the foreground is clearly a big draw it's also angular and dynamic and contrasting things I'll be coming on to in future videos but it's that enveloping warmth of the light that's the kind of key mood indicator and I've enhanced that sort of warm calm mood with a long shutter speed the water here was very dynamic and very aggressive but with us as a slower shutter speed I've managed to create a very calm very ethereal image that's got this nice warm light but there's an angular subject that creates the dynamic but again it's the use of color that's that's the mood influencer because it's very easy to come in take away so if I take the vibrance out of this and just drop that vibrance so there's no it's not as saturated it loses an awful lot of its energy stop thinking of vibrance and saturation and all of these different color tools as technical things everything is emotional everything has an impact here and here and if you don't feel them you need to because this is where your evolution is going to take place as a landscape photographer and this is a kind of another similar one with the overall blueness of this I would dial that back a touch these days this is an older image and my personal style has changed that my taste has changed but yeah generally on the whole the the angularity of the subjects itself creates a dynamic that's taking us towards the light but it's that warm light in the background that pulls us through the frame and competes quite well with that quite dynamic iceberg in the foreground this is another little favorite photograph of mine it was the most bizarre moments of my time ever on Iceland that I must have spent years of my life there the Setting Sun was just catching this iceberg on the lagoon there and it was just lit up like a light ball but what we have here is the classic example of how color and luminosity will draw us everything else is cool blue the iceberg is rich and vibrant and colorful and saturated and that just shines out of the darkness and if we if one was to just take the exposure of this frame and reduce it down somewhat not for creative reasons but just to illustrate just how luminous that thing is in its own right so I would hope that some of these examples have been sufficient to illustrate the point that the color choices that we make in our photographs and it's not necessarily the color of our subjects is the color palette is the white balance we choose is the transitions between coolness and warmth that allows certain things to stand out more than other things in the next part of this video I'm going to start looking at luminosity as a compositional consequence and we follow on exactly from where we've left off is the luminosity of things that are going to draw us into the frame as usual if you found this useful please subscribe that's doing us great favor also if you can head over to F stoppers calm the link is down below I'm writing a bunch of articles on there every week now and they're very complementary to what we're talking about here back and sometimes go into more detail in images and text then obviously I can do in these shorter videos so f stoppers calm is really going to help out with that and please click on the link below and buy a copy of the luminosity and contrast eBook the second part of that will be coming out in a couple of months time and I'll be addressing color in the landscape so it's all starting to come together now I hope you're all well and take care of yourselves until next week when on Wednesday I'm talking with Mark Adamas and the vision and light and then next Sunday for part three of compositional consequences thanks for watching have a great time be safe [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Expressive Photography

Views: 7,769

Keywords: Lightroom, Photography, Alister Benn, Landscape photography, how to, tutorials, compose, composition, lines, angles, curves, leading lines, education, educate, expressive photography, barriers, vision, experience, tutorial, lesson, teach, professional, be better, at, happy, motivation, inspiration, inspire, colour

Id: S_TRAm9EjiM

Length: 19min 11sec (1151 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 05 2020