Assignment 3: Colour

So after getting very excited about my next assignment and how I would base it around Origami, I return with a completely different subject matter. The problem with the Origami figures was that you really need to have a deft hand and producing them properly..ragged edges are just not very impressive to look at.

I had to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new idea. I drew on my archives of photographs looking for the colour themes, and I found plenty!

Complementary Colours:
Blue and Orange:

Pink and  Lime:

Yellow and Violet:

Red and Green:

Similar Colours
Yellow and Orange:

Yellow and Green:

 

Cyan and Green:

Purple and Magenta:

 

 

Contrasts
Purple and Green:

Orange and Purple:

Yellow and Blue:

 

Orange and Green:

 

Colour Accents

Blue and Red:

Purple and Green:

 

Blue and Orange:

Orange and Yellow:

Asignment 3: Colour

 

Boutet 1708 colour circles

 

 

 

 

 
The colours of light.

 

I have copied 2 images from the web on colour wheels. the first is a quaint early 18th Century picture showing that even then we were interested in understanding the way colours work. As this is a photography course and in particular, a course reliant on digital media (certainly for those of us using digital cameras and Photoshop) I have opted to rely on a colour of light wheel although the concept of colour contrasts and harmonies relates to our perception of colour which transcends the actual medium. It is beyond the scope of this assignment to go into a theoretical discussion analysing how colours interact.

 

The assignment brief asks us to show a command of colour in photography by making use of the visual medium, photography. We have to explore colour relations through the harmony of complementary colours, similar colours and colour contrasts. We're also asked to explore colour accents through any of these relationships. To keep things simple (ha ha) I've decided to continue my approach of having themed assignments and this one will look at these relationships thru' photos of origami! So I'm off to build animal shapes of paper to photograph them for the assignment... see you in a bit. Ta-ta for now.

A year on

So it's been a year since I last looked at my course. I was bullied in my last job, had counselling for that and the resultant depression and spent many hours hating my photography and everything else I hold dear. There have been many times in the last year that I resolved to give up on the course. "Who was I kidding?" "Me? A photographer?" "Really?"

Moments of extreme  self-doubt and loathing.

I changed jobs and slowly the anger abated and I started to see light at the end of the tunnel. I started running and started enjoying life again. And still the course loomed on the horizon... a massive cloud waiting to prove once and for all that I am no photographer. A mediocre snapper at best. It's a terrible having to admit that. I love taking pictures, but the end result is never really memorable and certainly not anything I would rate as anything more than a pretty picture.

So what now? do I carry on with this course? Do I cut my losses and abandon it after 2 assignments?
I've decided that I will carry on. If only to see it through and learn what I had always thought should be innate and instinctual to a photographer.

I'm back!