One could say colour is the most important thing in a photograph or even the lack of colour. When we look at an image the first thing we see are the colours, the contrast between white and black, primary colours such as reds, greens and blues and all the fancy stuff in between. However that’s not all, colour can go a lot deeper it can convey mood, emotion, warmth, coldness and much more.
Over time without realising we as humans have become trained. Trained in the art of creating meanings without being told them, for example in cinema when showing a break in, the simple use of flashing red lights can hint to us straight away someone is breaking in without even showing the physical break in, red also conveys danger along with a lot of other things. Through time psychologically we have become susceptible to subconsciously reading these colour cues without actually realising we are doing it.
Here are a few meanings associated with colours,
Black
Sophistication, Power, Mystery, Formality, Death, Evil
Yellow
Intellect, Energy, Caution, Cowardice, Cheerfulness, Joy
White
Hope, Goodness, Light, Purity, Cleanliness, Coolness, Simplicity
Red
Danger, Romance, Style, Excitement, Urgency, Sexy
Blue
Stability, Peace, Confidence, Affection, Integrity, Calmness, Tranquillity
Purple
Luxury, Dignity, Wisdom, Spirituality, Vision, Magic, Royalty
Green
Life, Environment, Healing, Money, Relaxation, Freshness, Growth
Pink
Romance, Faithfulness, Beauty, Love, Friendship, Sensitivity, Compassion
Now the use of colours is used highly in advertising photography after all an adverts main goal is to throw and much information to us the viewer in the fastest and easiest way. Apple uses white, which conveys purity, goodness and a general truthfulness factor. When cigarette adverts were allowed Silk Cut used a purple silk backdrop, which gave the feeling of luxury, the queen also wears a lot of purple, the list could go on forever.
As you can probably tell lately I’ve been reading up a lot on semiology and meanings behind images in an attempt to kind of give my images a second layer. I got bored of just taking photographs of people against backdrops just because I can, as cool as they look I feel like there is something missing from them.
Now the next time I do find myself planning a shoot I’m going to make sure I pay a lot more attention to colours but here are a few photographs that were originally monochrome but I’ve added a hint of colour hues to them to make them a little more interesting. I added red to give a slightly more sultry and sexy feel to this set, the red also kind of adds a whole notion of taboo in these images also i feel, maybe because it makes them look as if they're photographed in a brothel.
