Colour

The two screenshots of the music videos, Coldplay-Yellow and Little Mix- Power, show different emotions through the use of colour. For example, Yellow is a sad song about his love for a girl and the whole video uses dull colours with low saturation. Whereas Little Mix's Power shows a girl dominating song with a happy tune by the bright colours as shown above with neon colours etc.

Definitions:

Colour can have many definitions. The Scientific definition is that colour is the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light. Colour begins with light and the colours we see are influenced by the characteristics of the light source. Wavelengths of reflected light determine what colour you see. In photography, when you want to define a specific colour, there are three properties to consider; Hue, Value, and Saturation.

•Colour affects us emotionally, with different colours evoking different emotions.

•In short, colour has the capacity to affect the human nervous system. 

•Analogous colours next to each other on the colour wheel "get along" and are referred to as being harmonious. Analogous colours are often used in visual design and have a soothing affect.

•        Complimentary colours are opposite to each other on the colour wheel
•         Complimentary colours exhibit more contrast when positioned adjacent to each other -for example yellow appears more intense when positioned on or beside blue or violet

• colour saturation is used to describe the intensity of colour in the image. A saturated image has overly bright colours.
  
• Muted colours are soft and gentle, not bright and strong.
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• In photography, red, green and blue are the primary colours for capturing the image, but cyan, magenta, and yellow are the primaries for printing the image.
  

Colours and Emotions.

 Different colours present different emotions,physical things and way of behaviour. Below are different things each colour represent.

• Red- emotionally red can mean love, passion or anger. Physical things it could represent are blood, pressure or a raisin heart rate. Behaviour that red can represent is aggressive or danger.
• Orange- Emotionally it can mean happy, energetic or social. Physically it can mean movement or encourages.
• Yellow-emotionally yellow can mean warm,cheerful or solitary. Physically it can mean poor skin, illness.
• Green- emotionally presents friendly, calming and neutral. Physically presents, focus and behaviour presented is envy.
• Blue- emotionally presents isolated, cool ,peaceful. Physically presents low blood pressure and presents a calm behaviour.
• Purple- emotionally presents creativity and spiritual.

Nick Knight.

Nick Knight's has a reputation for pushing boundaries technically and creatively at every opportunity. He has worked on a range of often controversial issues during his career - from racism, disability, ageism, and more recently fat-ism. He continually challenges conventional ideals of beauty.Born in London in 1958, Knight studied photography at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design. He graduated with a distinction in 1982.

       The above images showed a variation of colour in many ways. For example, more colours are created with the melted flowers, as the colours of each flower mix together. The melted flowers give a more dramatic look. The last photo shows analogous colours to create a soothing effect which contrast with the 4th photo which has complimentary colours of blue and pink to addd dimension.

I took inspiration from Knights photos and tried to find colourful flowers that I could then later on edit by adding saturation to add effect.

Image Bank.

The following images were added as part of my visual research.

Contact sheet.

The contact sheet above was made by Photoshop, using my best 40 photos.

Best Images:

Images that need improving:

These images were selected as I feel they were not the right angle or setting to make a good photo. I feel these photos are very basic and don't have a good background. For the top photo, I wanted to show the complimentary colours of the leaves and the flowers. If I were to reshoot this photo I would frame the photo by zooming in more or having a higher angle to have a perspective view of the tree.

The second image shows different coloured flowers. I like this photo because there is many types of colour with the leaves and background etc. However I don't like the angle this photo was taken at. 

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.

My idea for recording colour was to photograph the colours of nature, showing complementary and analogous colours.  I was inspired from my research of Nick Knight. Knights use of complimentary colours in the images above in my research, inspired me to take the picture of the berries in the trees in my best images.

 The images came out as I expected, however if i had a camera where i could adjust my settings i think they would have turned out better.

 Best selected images...

The image of the up close rose was shot at a high zoom so that i could see more details.  There are many tones of orange in this photo. i like this photo because the colour is vibrant.  

Another image in my best images, is the berries in the bush. I liked this image as it showed complimentary colours and the contrast of light and dark.

 With regards to some of the images that did not come out as I expected, my camera could not allow me to adapt my settings as I was an auto bridge camera. Some images lacked focus, whilst in the case of others I struggled to use the camera to the best of its ability. I believe I can overcome these issues through more practise.

AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

I used a Nikon B500 Coolpix Camera for all the shots taken. this is a bridge camera with auto settings, so I could not adjust to find the best range to shoot in. However I could change settings to 'creative mode' or 'landscape mode' to help adjust photos. 
If I were to reshoot my photos again I would use a different camera and a tripod, so I could get more focus and be able to change the range, shutter speed and more.

Editing my photos in photoshop.

The original photos:

The steps of editing:

 In this photo I used the curve effect to add dimensions and shading to the original image. It also added in some saturation.








In this photo I changed the Hue and saturation to make the colours more lively and brighter. I changed the saturation of each colour in the picture; red, yellow and green. However I didn't like the amount of saturation on the yellow here, so in the next image I lowered the saturation of yellow.






In this photo I changed the photo to black and white to add a dramatic effect but to also drain the photo of the colours

Here I edited the photo by firstly changing the levels. Doing this created darker shadows on the leaves. Next I changed the saturation, hue and lightness. I wanted this photo to highlight the vibrance of the colour in the rose. Changing the saturation did this by creating a more pink tone into the photo. On the right is the levels of each factor I changed. Lastly I changed the exposure, offset and gamma correction.

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other

 sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

The artist research was helpful as I realised that I could take photos of flowers in different ways and could show different combinations of colours. My research of Nick Knight helped me focus on both natural colours made by flowers but also abstract colours through photoshop. 

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.  

 I believe that I have produced a strong series of images inspired by my research of colour and the images of Nick Knights work. The images below in my 'Edited images' have been photoshopped to enhance the colours, saturations and exposure for my images.

My Final Four Photos: