Creative Colour Photography
This month I want to suggest a way of making your colour photographs a little more cunning and creative.
means aligning trees, rivers, rocks, clouds or hills so that these elements appear throughout the photographic frame.
It takes observation and patience but is really just an extension of a traditional landscape technique where you include both foreground and background interest in the frame.
This connection between foreground and background adds depth to the image.
With landscape, nothing is moving so it is the photographer who has to position themselves to find the best, most interesting viewpoint to create the desired composition. This
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Sometimes elements of landscape can be a long distance apart meaning that lighting can be different on each element. Mist could pervade the background, enhancing the mood and atmosphere of the scene. With photographs taken in the street, there is often
movement as people, bikes and cars bustle around. To capture a street scene requires speed of thought and reaction from the photographer. To a certain degree, the photographer can position themselves intelligently, time permitting but often it is a matter of waiting for the moving elements to reach a place where you can capture them to complete the composition of your choice. This is known as ‘The decisive moment’ a term popularised by street photographer and photojournalist Henri Cartier - Bresson. So how can you use this technique to enhance your colour images ? Well added to the composition of elements that I have mentioned, you can also, with skill and patience, capture matching colours in the foreground and background. Observation is the key, a skill which photographers can develop over time with a little practice.
