I have been wondering about the colour in my photographs. It often seems a bit pale, making me wonder what's going on here when I think of the vibrant colour you sometimes see in glossy panoramic travel photographs and the like. What is the cause of it, I am not sure but I'm confident I will get to the bottom of the situation. Nevertheless, I had a look at some highly thought-of colour photography just to see what the difference was between that and my deckchairs from yesterday (see below).
The colour deckchairs is a picture I like, speaking for myself. I suppose it reminds me of light-hearted seaside England a little bit, as well as being on the other hand part of my view of nature - a conflict between the natural world and what we use it for, more gently considered than cynical, I think. Now the weather was not able to decide what it was doing, alternately a sunny day breaking out of the dark chrysalis of night (as you might say) and the typical English approach that turns an August day a different colour by liberal applications of November rain showers. So in fact the in situ colour was not particularly bright, so in a way this is reflected in the colour you see in the picture. But the point is I am trying to understand how to control the colour: I am happy to have colour-feeling X, Y, or Z but would like to achieve it deliberately, thanks! (Apart from that we might be a little bit over-exposed in the sky at top left, also.)
The issue of controlling the image will become clear, I am sure (I already know you can't fully control anything! That's what makes good pictures a surprise - though you should be able to have technical facility and preparation just as with any artistic endeavour - thinking of the piano here, for one). Whatever is causing whatever-it-is, it will be possible to find out about it, like with anything. Now let's look at what I felt was missing - deep, vibrant colour.
I already know that things that on the surface are rather alluring are not always of much interest once you start thinking about them (all that glisters is not gold, as the saying goes). Again, think of the piano: it's easy to get a particular sound that people love (there are several styles) and keep going for it, but what happens to the music? What music, I'm an artist, comes the answer. So in other words let's not be too worried about making beautiful photographs that are widely admired, and try to show the beauty that already exists in the world rather than adding a more instantly attractive coating.
Let's have a look at a colourful picture. Steve McCurry is a photographer well-known for his use of colour. Here is one of his pictures:
You can see more at
the website.
Well there is colour here and it is deep and attractive! And we can look at lots of similar pictures with more or less colour in and have a similar feeling about them. I notice from the website that the pictures they show are from all over the world - well, when I say
all over, I mean of course all over except for where "we" live. That means where Steve McCurry lives, and I presume that is North America. The pictures will be consumed by "the West" and will largely be images of things that are outside that. I mean, this is not so bad. Photographs are only worthwhile if they show something nobody has seen before, so that makes sense. Look at his
biography too - this is a serious person! My feeling about the colour is that it is telling us that the world outside the cities of the West has something we lack: mystery, the famous exotic magic of far-away places that people have been getting so excited about for so long. Where there is colour, there is life, and city life lacks something that we are trying to find when we say "wow" on seeing one of these pictures. They all have an internal consistency of image, too - the colour is deep and lets deeper levels of association catch on the film grains and their prints. They are good pictures. But basically I felt that colour is here too, that "over there" in India or wherever, the local people do not find their lives so strange or exotic, and that while the strong-coloured pictures will inevitably draw the attention more and sell the photobooks, we shouldn't be distracted by all that. It's bright, alright, but it's not the only kind of life an image can have.
What I think is this: we could
go to Afghanistan or on a similar adventure, but we shouldn't forget that it is not the same level of adventure for the people who already live there. Is that to say that it is not really interesting in foreign places? Maybe - most places are mostly the same as each other except for some superficial differences. But on the other hand, there really could be the same level of adventure here as there. It's not less exciting over there, it's more exciting over here! We should be making travel pictures of our own street.
With their own appropriate level of colour of course!
Anyway, colour is good and I'm glad to see some for once. I don't see a lot round here!
NOTE: now I know the sky was simply overexposed! The eye can adjust to wide differences in contrast (bright to dark) but the camera has a more limited range. (November 06)
Labels: development, patience, photography, technology
It's hard to imagine old black-and-white people as real colour people. All the old people - Busoni, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Alkan, Chopin and company - they were all colour people.
