Capturing Colour – Part 4

City Life

Blue! I’ll get straight to the point with this post. For me cities look their best in photographs when blue is the predominantly featured colour – it makes them look clean, cool and modern – something most cities wish they were! This won’t work for every city, especially those which are very traditional (or for those in England where blue skies seem to be quite a rarity…), but for most blues really work.

When it comes to travel photography, bright or bold colours play a significant role in any photograph. Whether you want the viewer to feel happy or sad, see the warmth or the cold or simply notice the photograph to begin with – all this rests in the capable hands of colour. Kiff Holland, a famous painter, once said “Colour creates, enhances, changes, reveals and establishes the mood of the painting” and the same applies to photography.

Whether it’s a bright blue sky with fluffy clouds, a dark blue stormy sky or my favourite time of the day – blue hour – your options really are endless. Again patience is needed, there is no point shooting all of your planned shots when you know the weather and light simply aren’t right. Wait it out and you’ll be so glad you did. Postcard perfect pictures don’t happen by chance – we sit and wait for that shot to become possible!

The blue in this shot helps the viewer to see that what we are actually seeing are reflections. Without the blue highlights I don’t think the image would have been successful, plus it would have been quite bland – a splash of colour always catches people’s eyes!

From the bright blue sky to the blue glass to the hazy blue buildings in the background – I feel this shot shows the very best of modern singapore. It looks crisp and clean, and it also looks like a place many people would love to visit, whether or not you would feel the same if the sky was grey and the glass was a dirty off white colour remains to be seen…

The soft blues in this dawn shot of the Esplanade really look beautiful. The colours here aren’t shocking, they are subtle and used to show the calm mornings that can be had in Singapore. Again, I feel the blue really adds to the tranquillity of the image and I don’t think this shot would work with any other predominant colour.

For my final post I felt it best to talk about the main reason you need a fully calibrated monitor – skin tones! Ensuring you have this right is essential for any portrait to work as it can often be quite difficult, next time we’ll see why!