colortheory

Complementary Colors in Photography

Photography, as the name suggests, is the process of creating images with light. But if you use only light, the entire image will be pure white (or any other color). So we also need the absence of light, or shadows, to create and showcase what we want. It's the interplay between light and shadows that creates the final image.

Are You Still Chasing ‘Perfect’ Color?

It's my belief that color is actually one of the most subjective elements that we as humans all understand, yet we actually have no real way of enforcing or translating it to one another.

The Power of Color in Landscape Photography

Color is so important in landscape photography. The correct harmony of colors can make a huge difference to an image and help to create your own style. In this 20-minute video, I talk about how I create a painterly look in my photos and how I edit in Lightroom.

Creative Applications of Color Theory in Landscape Photography

Discussions of many photography topics have the potential to veer deep into complex technical territory that may appeal more to scientists than to artists, and color theory is certainly one of those topics that can become rather arcane quite easily. What follows is a guide for landscape photographers who are more artistically inclined, those who are primarily interested in applying color theory to achieve creative goals.

A Comprehensive Color Theory Guide for Photographers

We talk about composition a lot, but have you ever really dived into the subject of color theory and thought about how it applies to your photography? If you haven't, you should... and arguably the best place to start is this incredibly comprehensive demo by landscape photographer Dave Morrow.

A Brief History of Color Photography

When photographing the world around us, the property of color is likely something most people tend to take for granted. We expect our cameras to portray the visible light spectrum accurately. However, in a world so engrossed with color, we sometimes forget how long it took to get to this point in time and how many photographers and scientists viewed the concept of color photography as a pipe dream.

Exploring the World of Color Theory with a 3D Modeling Program

From time to time I post plots of color gamuts like the one above. Each time, I get emails asking how I make them, leading me to assume that the world's thirst for color nerdiness is going unquenched. I'm setting out to fix that in this post.

Color Photography Turns 150 Years Old

Color photography was born on this day 150 years ago in 1861 when Scottish physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell and photographer Thomas Sutton -- inventor of the SLR camera -- shot the above photograph of a colored ribbon.