For now we will concentrate on the straighter end of color, and then will get to all the crazier stuff for the next Topic. I want to make sure you know how to control color by what you shoot, when you shoot, and how you should before we move to altering color with post-processing.
Remember that the Topic is merely the technical side of it. The Content, the subject of what you're shooting, still is completely up to you. These photographs have to be about what YOU are interested in before anybody else can be interested in them. If you just shoot for an assignment then you are shooting somebody else's photographs.
There are three lectures that you should read through:
• The first is mostly text and is about Color Theory:
[some of it gets into Photoshop adjustments and information about printing that are not
particularly relevant for this class so you can skip over those paragraphs.]
• The next is about how to work with color to produce various emotional responses:
There are several phases that I would like you to focus on:
Nonochrome = no color, which is where we started with the B&W shots,
this what happens if you shoot color pictures of things that have no color.
Monochrome = 1 color; try shooting things with predominately 1 color.
Harmonious Color = expands to include several colors that are all very close
Complimentary Color = opposite colors;
e.g <red - cyan>, <green - magenta>, <blue -yellow>
• The third is about shooting Color at Night, and it is a slide show web page
More thoughts on Shooting in Color:
Color photography is a lot harder than Black & White. This is because when the Black & White process removes all of the color, it injects a sense of a mystery. Color photos however quite often look too real. Mystery is a most important element in making compelling images. If your viewer can identify objects in the photograph quickly, then they will stop looking. This makes an unsuccessful print. You have to make photographs that pose questions rather revealing answers. [if your photos just provide information and do not engage the viewer in a dialog, then that is photojournalist. This is not better or worse than art-photo, but it is different. (This doesn't mean you can't use a photojournalist style, but...) (note: there is no black or white in these classifications, just shades of gray.)
So we are looking for photographs reveal the eye, the heart and the mind of the photographer. When you do this you imbue your photographs with a sense of Passion. We can see you in the photos. We do not want photographs of things, we want photos of you looking at things. This is the difference between passive and active photography. Passive photographs, pictures of things, fall to the documentary side. These are objective, and art tends to be about subjectivity. As Cartier-Bresson said, "Ideas are not interesting. It is opinions on facts..." In the long run what is interesting is learning about how someone (the photo artist) sees the world, and how much of their personality they share with you, the viewer. It is about their personal vision (that includes the visual, the emotional and the conceptual aspects of their being) and how that resonates with your own personal vision. Who wants to look at work made by someone who doesn't share your point of view? (Although sometimes contrariness can be stimulating!) (“You're not making art until you piss someone off!”)
Please remember to not forget all the visual tools you picked up during the first project in B&W. Closeness, Angle of View and Dramatic Lighting are still key elements. In fact, they are even more important now. Having multiple points of interest in the frame is also very important.
Please re-read the Photo Clichés handout. Classic color clichés are sunsets. Photographs that are taken only for color effect remain in the physical domain only. We are looking for photos with emotional impact. Another Smartphone cliché is shooting food.
Please look at work by the following Photo Artists on the RESEARCH pages of the berk-edu.com site: Some of this may be beyond the reach of a first level class, but you should be aware of the many ways that photo-artists work.
PLACES : COLOR
Jan Staller, Arthur Ollman : color at night
Richard Misrach : color landscape
Joel Meyerowitz : cape light
Stephen Shore : urban landscapes
William Eggleston : suburbia in color
John Divola (color), John Divola (bw): creative vandalism
Patrick Wertan : numbered cityscapes
Naoya Hatakeyama : night landscape
Joel Sternfeld, Alan Cohen : landscape in memorium
John Pfahl : altered landscape, beautiful pollution; windows
Ken Josephson, Akira Komoto : conceptual vision
PEOPLE : COLOR
Nan Golden : the ballad of sexual dependency
Joyce Tennyson : studio portraits
Pierre & Gilles : beautiful people
Loretta Lux : children
Gregory Crewdson : staged dramas
Lucas Samaris : altered polaroids
No comments:
Post a Comment