SIAST Applied Photography: colour

Showing posts with label colour. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

PHOT 205 ~ High Dynamic Range

Reproducing the full range of tones or brightness values seen by the human eye is one of the most fundamental challenges in photography. Capture, display and print technologies are all limited when we compare them to the ability of the human eye to see a full range of tones. While it was impossible (even with dodging and burning) to do so before, we can now exceed the range of brightness that the human eye can view at one time. However, when dealing with high dynamic range images and HDR software and techniques, it’s important to remember there are simpler methods that may perform equally as well.

Monday, February 28, 2011

PHOT 210 ~ Advertising Image Design and Lighting

In this course, students explore the need for effective advertising images and learn how they are more than product illustrations. They discover the storytelling differences between formal advertisements and illustrative photography. Illustrations must make a visual statement. Advertising images are expected to showcase a product or service in an appealing or exciting manner. With all of the conceptual, lighting and production tools at their disposal, they create motivating and well-composed images for advertising and illustrative use.

Monday, February 7, 2011

PHOT 209 ~ Lighting Techniques for Advertising

Almost anyone can take a good picture at some time. But true professionals can make good photographs day in and day out, under ideal or adverse conditions. Most importantly, a great image has to have soul. This comes when you love your work, because how you feel about your work ultimately show through. You must be willing to spend the time to master your craft, and in the end, develop a distinctive but versatile style in order to succeed.

Monday, December 20, 2010

PHOT 213 ~ Warm Tone Images

Warm colours advance; cool colours recede. Light colours advance; dark colours recede. Intense colours advance; neutralized colours recede. These rules are basic to understanding how colour affects space. Colours will create different spatial qualities in combination with one another. For example a light, intense colour such as yellow will seem to come further forward when it is surrounded by a cool, dark or neutralized colour than when it is surrounded by an intense orange.

Complimentary colours that set one another off most strongly can activate an area of space and provide strong spatial accents. Analogous colours do not have the same bold contrast but because they move into one another on the colour wheel, they can be arranged to imply movement in space.

Friday, December 17, 2010

PHOT 213 ~ Cool Tone Images

In general, people view a photograph and have an emotional response. The goal of a professional photographer is to draw out specific emotions. Lighting is the best tool a photographer has to control, guide and promote how his/her image will be experienced.

For most of our photographs, however, the attainment of a particular feeling or meaning is more suggestive – our ability to achieve impact may be more implied than actual. It's important to remember as well that the measure of our success is based not on our intent, but in the impact on the viewer. In the intense world of visual communications, if they don't get it, chances are it's our fault not theirs.

Monday, December 13, 2010

PHOT 213 ~ Colour as a Subject

The endless variety of colour interacting with colour make it an exciting design element with which to work. Hue contrast, simultaneous contrast, warm/cool contrast, value contrast and contrast of intensity are aspects of colour which suggest its range. The addition of colour will affect line, shape, the principle of balance, dominance, variety and harmony in a design. The addition of a colour element to an achromatic design will immediately shift the balance. An intense yellow applied to a small secondary shape will attract attention to it.

Colour can also be used to strengthen an existing design idea. Using neutralized colour to set off the dominant element may make the dominant element stronger or the background more subtle. The best way to understand the effect of colour on other aspects of design is to experiment with it and observe the results.