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Color theory is complicated. People spend hours in accredited institutions learning about it. There's a science to picking out colors and putting them together to achieve a desired effect. Once you know how to do it, these concepts can help you in every aspect of your life: from your wardrobe to interior design, right down to choosing your blog's theme colors.

Contrast is a huge element in photography and it just so happens that color plays an important role. It takes some consideration and vision to compose a shot artistically. Never fear, though, because there's a formula for creating photographs using color and contrast to evoke emotion and interest.

Color And Contrast In Photography

Color is actually a combination of three terms I bet you know: hue, saturation and brightness.

Hue

When you think of a color, you're probably thinking of a hue-with-a-specific-saturation-and-brightness.

There are primary hues, which when mixed, produce secondary hues. Then, if a primary and secondary hue are mixed, you get a tertiary hue.

All of it works because of how the light waves interact with one another. The hues in a color wheel appear in the same order they do in a rainbow. Hues opposite one another on the wheel are called complimentary or contrasting colors.

Saturation

The hues in the color wheel above are fully saturated. Most things we come across in nature will be much more dull. Variations of saturation are called tint (white added), shade (black added) and tone (grey added).

BRIGHTNESS

This is something we may think of more in terms of lighting and exposure, which are both big components, however brightness strongly affects color as well. It is the range between light and dark. Some colors only have a short range: for example yellow can be tinted until it reaches white, however if it is shaded too much it becomes another color entirely. Other colors like blue can extend the full range between tint and shade.

CONTRAST PHOTOS

Once you know how hue, saturation and brightness combine to form color, you can use that knowledge to think about contrast when creating photographs. Contrast, by definition, is a difference. You have the artistic choice of composing your photograph to showcase or minimize differences in lighting and color in your scene. These choices will help set the mood for your shot.

TONAL CONTRAST

This term is usually used in association with black and white photography, although color photos do have tonal contrast. Think of this in terms of highlights and shadows or blacks and whites. Our ability to perceive these differences in tone is why we can recognize shapes and lines.

High tonal contrast photos are primarily light and dark or white and black elements with a sharp difference between them. They are dramatic and strong.

Low tonal contrast photos do not have a wide range of brightness or color. They have no or less distinct shadows and highlights. They are relaxing and soothing to the eye.

COLOR CONTRAST

This is the difference in the colors as seen through the color wheel. High color contrast includes colors opposite or near opposite one another on the wheel. Low color contrast would include colors next to or a hop away from each other on the color wheel.

High Contrast: These photos all have high color contrast as they're primarily made up of complimentary colors. They are bold and dramatic.

Low Contrast: These photos all have low color contrast as they're made up of similar colors. They are peaceful and calm.

HIGH AND LOW KEY COMPOSITIONS

High key compositions are lighter in color, very bright and lack shadows. The mood is cheery and uplifting.

Low key compositions are the exact opposite.

They are mostly dark and lack highlights. When looking at these, you're more likely to feel down and tense.

MORE PHOTOGRAPHY TUTORIALS

This is really just the tip of the iceberg, but hopefully it will get you started in recognizing how color can be a character in your photos. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend these posts:

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Color Photography | Color and Contrast In Photography

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Color theory is complicated. People spend hours in accredited institutions learning about it. There's a science to picking out colors and putting them together to achieve a desired effect. Once you know how to do it, these concepts can help you in every aspect of your life: from your wardrobe to interior design, right down to choosing your blog's theme colors.

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Colour is everywhere. We're surrounded by it, we can't avoid it and therefore we tend to take it for granted when we take photos. But take it for granted, and you're likely to end up with mediocre photos. Just because colour is everywhere doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to how it affects your images. We see so many average photos each day - in magazines, on the internet, in books - that sometimes it's easy to forget that colour photography can be a magical, evocative medium.

We've put together seven tips to help you get the most out of colour. At the end of the article is a section of links to photographers who use colour to create powerful photos. With a little bit of thought, so can you.

Now is the time to start using colour to create powerful photos. Colour is an important part of a photo's composition (unless you're shooting black and white of course), although you may not have thought of it that way before. Colour is as much as part of a photo's composition as other building blocks such as shape, form, texture, lines and light.

1. Use Strong, Bold Colours

Deep, saturated colours have impact. The key to using strong colours successfully is in keeping the composition simple. Including lots of different colours in a photo lessens their impact. For maximum effect, stick to a few blocks of bold colour.

This photo is a good example of strong but simple colour. The composition can be divided up into two large blocks of colour; green and blue.
Tip: Use a polarising filter. Polarising filters work by blocking reflected light off non-metallic surfaces. The result is deeper, purer colour, including the sky. Compare these two photos, they were taken one after the other, the bottom one with a polarising filter, the top one without. The sky in the polarised photo is dramatically darker:
2. Use Subtle, Pastel Colours

Colour photography isn't just about strong colour. Colour photography can be very subtle, almost monochrome. You're more likely to get pastel colours on a dull cloudy day. This type of light, which is so soft that there are almost no shadows, is ideal for subjects like portraiture, flowers, still life and waterfalls - anything where too much contrast could ruin the photo.

You can also desaturate colours by using the Hue/Saturation command in Photoshop. This is a good way of controlling colour in post-production.

This photo of an old wooden chair has soft, subtle colours; nothing bright or attention grabbing.

3. Use One Colour Against a Neutral Background

The two most important elements in the composition of this photo of an old car are the colour and texture. The neutral grey of the background accentuates the car's blue paintwork. Placing a strong colour against a neutral background emphasises the colour because there are no competing hues to detract attention from it.

How do you find a neutral background? Anything that's grey or black will do, and it can also work if the background is in deep shadow.

4. Let One Colour Dominate

Let one colour dominate. The colour becomes the main subject of the photo, as in this photo of plant pots against a terracotta coloured wall. Terracotta is the dominant hue of the photo. The effect is even stronger when the dominant colour is a primary colour (red, yellow or blue). You can see that in the photo of a blue wall used to illustrate the next point (below).

5. Colour Balance

This diagram is called a colour wheel and explains the relationships between different colours. Colours close to each other on the wheel complement each other. If you want to create a photo with a calm, mellow feel, then use colours that are close to each other on the wheel. Good examples are a blue sea underneath a blue sky - or an autumnal woodland scene composed of yellow, red and brown hues. This photo of a blue wall is another example, it uses the colours blue, green and purple which are all close on the wheel.

The opposite approach is to create a photo with high colour contrast - you do this by using colours that are on opposite sides of the wheel. For example, a girl wearing a yellow dress against a bright blue sky. Or red flowers in a green field:

Red, yellow, orange and brown are warm colours. Blue is a cool colour. Green and purple are somewhere in-between. Warm colours appear to come forward in a photo, and cool colours to recede. If you place a warm coloured subject against a cooler coloured background, the subject stands out. You can see this effect in the photo of the red flowers (above).

6. Colour Temperature

Light has colour. The light cast by the setting sun or a candle has an orange cast, for example. The light in the shadows of a sunny sky has a blue cast. Our eyes adjust to this automatically.

Your camera will adjust automatically as well, but only if you set the white balance setting to automatic (check your manual for instructions). It also comes with preset white balance controls. These are normally daylight, shade, cloudy, flash, tungsten and flourescent; although they may vary from camera to camera. You can set these to match the light source that's lighting your subject.

You can give a photo mood by setting the 'wrong' white balance. Understand this concept, and you can use it to create more powerful photos.
Tip: If you've set your camera to record photos in the JPEG format, then it's important to set the white balance correctly when you're taking the photos. This is because white balance can't be adjusted afterwards in Photoshop. You can change the colour balance, but this isn't the same as changing the white balance, and you may be left with a colour cast that you can't eliminate. If your camera is recording photos in RAW format, you can adjust the white balance afterwards with the RAW converter that you normally use. This is a good reason for shooting in RAW, as it means you can fine tune the white balance setting in post-production if required. You can also change the white balance for artistic effect.
Try this for shooting portraits. Set the camera's white balance to cloudy. This creates a photo with a beautiful, flattering warm tone. For those of you familiar with film photography, this is the equivalent of using an 81B filter with daylight balanced film.

The top portrait was processed with the white balance set to daylight, and the bottom one with the white balance set to cloudy.

Landscapes can also benefit from a warm white balance. But some landscapes benefit from a colder light balance. Waterfalls, for example, can look beautiful in cool light, as can any wintry scene.

In the waterfall photos above, the first had the white balance set to daylight; and for the second I moved the colour temperature slider in my RAW converter towards the blue end of the scale to give it a cold colour cast. Neither of these is necessarily right or wrong - it depends on your own preferences and the atmosphere that you're trying to create.

Cool colours balance warm colours - but only when the area of cool colour is much larger than the area of warm colour. If both were of equal size, the warm colour would dominate the composition. Create balance and harmony within the image by placing a small patch of warm colour against a large area of cool colour. The two balance each other out.

The warmth of the artificial light in this photo of Vence by is balanced by the expanse of the deep blue sky. Note the different colour temperatures of the light sources in the photo. The artificial lights are orange, and the night sky and background, lit by the fading daylight, are blue.

7. Colour and Emotion

Colour has emotional value - when you see colour in a photo, you will have an emotional response to it, especially if colour has been used strongly in the composition.

The same colour may evoke different emotions depending on the context in which it's used. It may also provoke different emotional responses in some people than others (this is more likely when the people are from different cultures). But generally speaking colours provoke a near universal response.

Red, for instance, is a warm colour. It can also mean danger (it's the colour of blood) or anger (seeing red).

Blue is a cool, relaxing colour. Think tropical islands under a clear blue sky. But it can also be a cold, frigid colour. Imagine a dark, wintry scene with ice and snow.

Green is fresh and vibrant, like plants and trees in the spring.

This photo of bluebell woods has a peaceful, tranquil mood that's reinforced by the use of blue and green colours.

Where to Find Further Inspiration

One of the best ways to learn about photography is by studying the work of talented photographers. These are some of our favourite colour photographers - three acknowledged masters and five contemporary photographers who display their work on Flickr. Bear in mind that some of these photographers shoot in black and white too, but we've chosen them because they have a strong colour vision.

Masters

Contemporary Photographers

Borealnz - Beautiful pastel colours, combined with textures. Lots of floral images and landscapes from New Zealand.

Felidae - Soft colours and lots of light tones.

Zemotion - Beautiful colour photos from Jingna Zhang, a fashion photographer based in Singapore. Her use of colour ranges from subtle, desaturated hues to bold, in your face colour.

Himitsuhana - Beautiful pastel, almost monochrome colours. A restrained palette and sophistocated imagery.

Stuck in Customs - Bold use of colour and HDR techniques by Trey Ratcliff.

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7 Ways to Create Powerful Photos with Colour

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Colour is everywhere. We're surrounded by it, we can't avoid it and therefore we tend to take it for granted when we take photos. But take it for granted, and you're likely to end up with mediocre photos. Just because colour is everywhere doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to how it affects your images.

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Keep it Simple - A Guide to Minimalist Photography | Contrastly

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In today’s visually-saturated world, the simplistic style of minimalist photography offers visually-soothing results - with plenty of breathing room. Minimalism provides a refreshing visual break from the constant flood of information, and visual noise that we face every day.

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We often hear the phrase 'less is more', and this couldn't be more apt than when appreciating minimalism. When executed well, minimalist photography can be an extremely simple but dramatic way to capture images. But how should we interpret, understand and execute minimalism within our own work?

Step 1. Understand Minimalism

Minimalism is a style employed by many 20th Century artists, using a minimum amount of components such as colour, shape, line and texture. Within the art world it is considered an extremely subjective concept, leaving interpretation and meaning up to the viewers perception of the work.

Some appreciate the openness of this idea, embracing the freedom of interpretation, where others despise the lack of direction or subject matter. For photographers, this is less of an issue, as more often than not, a photo remains a real-life moment captured on film. Despite this, we can employ some of the techniques of minimalism to enhance the impact of our work.

Step 2. Keep It Simple

When understanding how to achieve minimalism, the rule is to keep it simple. But that doesn't mean it needs to be boring or uninteresting. Try to pick a striking and engaging subject that will catch the eye. The subject has to be the strongest element of the shot, even though it may not take up the majority of the frame.

Before you take your shot, take a moment to consider what you are going to include in your shot, but also what you are going to leave out. The space around a subject will accentuate it's prominence, so look to zoom in or crop out any distractions.

Step 3. Composition

Achieving a strong compositional element to a minimalist photo is absolutely key in enhancing the impact of the shot. Like I mentioned in Step 2, what you leave out is just as important as what you leave in, so take some time to consider the structure of the subject and the space within which it is placed.

The "rule of thirds" applies here and will help when deciding how to frame your subject. Strong composition can also incorporate square structures and line, which we will come to later on, but keep an eye out for strong shapes and lines which might lend themselves to a minimalist shot.

Be sure to focus in on the subject, and if possible, select a depth of field that will make the subject stand out, this will draw the eye into the shot and enhance impact.

Step 4. Complimentary Colour

The use of colour in minimalist photography is highly evident and it is an extremely useful tool when it comes to capturing an eye catching yet simple shot. What many minimalist photos lack in subject matter they make up for in colour and in this case, the brighter the better!

Try to use the available light to bring out the colours within the scene. Many shots work based around a single colour, including both the subject and the background, but this can be difficult to find, so keep an eye out for either colours that compliment each other, or a combination of contrasting colours.

Step 5. Strong Line

In a similar way to the use of colour in minimalist photography, the effectiveness of line within a shot can be vital in adding to the image when subject matter is limited. As I mentioned before, strong horizontal or vertical lines lend themselves to strong composition, as they will give a solid structure to the image.

The old adage of using line to draw the eye into the shot is also relevant here. Consider where the line is leading, for example from the centre of the image leading away to the edge, or from a corner into the centre, with regard to what you want to the viewer to take away from the image.

Step 6. Getting All Touchy Feely

Like a lot of minimalist art, some minimalist shots are based purely on texture and colour, yet they grab your attention even without any distinct subject matter. For this, you need not only an engaging surface, but also the means to capture it in an interesting way.

Consider whether there is any direction to the texture and whether that line can be used effectively in a compositional sense. Try to use light to enhance the texture, to bring out the contrast and look to capture the image so the viewer could almost feel what they are seeing.

Step 7. Keep Your Eyes Open

Once you have spent some time studying minimalist examples, you'll begin to appreciate the examples of minimalism that surround you each and every day. When you're out and about, keep your eyes open for spaces and blocks of colour, interesting subjects that stand alone and clean lines. Look up, look down, keep searching and you will be rewarded.

A good place to start might be within geometric shapes found within architecture, which often include a whole wall of re-occurring pattern that can be exploited as a minimalist photo.

Step 8. Process

Processing minimalist shots should be reasonably simple, as having captured your shot, you should have a good notion of what you want to produce-something simple but dramatic. Something you might want to consider is experimenting with the more surreal images, using an artistic viewpoint to create an image that may be unrecognisable from it's original state but functions instead as a piece of art.

However, you may also want to stay true to life and simply process your image with a focus on bringing out the subject and enhancing the lines and colour within the shot.

Step 9. Tell the Story

Many minimalist photos are eye catching, featuring simple lines, appealing colours and could be considered an artistic expression, but once you've mastered capturing appealing images; it's time to take on a greater challenge. Can you tell a story through a photo shot in a minimalist style? Is it possible to convey a scene or event using reduced subject matter, colours and shapes?

To achieve this, you may well need to incorporate some interest from light, people or movement, but next time you're out shooting an event, once you've got all the shots you need, try summing up the event in one shot using as little subject matter as possible, you might surprise yourself!

Step 10. Get Creative

So hopefully now you have a basic understanding of minimalist photography and have a few techniques and tips to help you on your way with capturing your own minimalist images. As I said before, keep your eye out for possible shots and remember to keep it simple, the more eye catching the better.

Don't be afraid to get creative. Minimalism can be a very subjective topic, so what you appreciate, others may not, but get out there, see what you can find and get snapping!

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A 10 Step Guide to Superb Minimalist Photography | Envato Tuts+

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We often hear the phrase 'less is more', and this couldn't be more apt than when appreciating minimalism. When executed well, minimalist photography can be an extremely simple but dramatic way to...

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Minimalist Photography ~ 4 Tips To Keep It Simple With A Maximum Impact

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Minimalism is a very subjective concept in the art world. The Webster dictionary defines it as follows: A style or technique that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity. Some love it, others hate it, but no one seems to be indifferent. Many artists thrive in the openness of the concept, others have a problem [...]

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