Imitating Painters

[doug anderson]

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I couldn't help but stop and take this shot. It seemed a painting to me.

 

[doug anderson]

Photo as Painting: responses welcome

I'm studying color composition a lot these days. This is another shot I couldn't help but take.

 

[Asher Kelman]

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I couldn't help but stop and take this shot. It seemed a painting to me.

Doug,

When I see a great painting like this, I say to myself, this looks like a wonderful photograph! Nature's beauty reflected by any mirror is fabulous here!

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

I'm studying color composition a lot these days. This is another shot I couldn't help but take.

I think Bart Van Der Wolf has better sense of critical elements in color composition than I do. So I'll deal with overall composition, knowing you want the values of a painter's work. In this second peaceful composition, there's hidden, more detail to help give the image additional "fabric", if you would consider that possibility. It depends on what's on your mind! Still, it's helpful, nevertheless, to look at a B&W version to at least realize and recognize what structural detail there might be. Then, you'd decide what importance, if any, you might allocate to each discovered feature. Your reference would be your inner sense of how you want to "export" to the world, the ideas you have on this scene.

The object is not to show what the camera sees, but as in a painting, to share what your mind does with this imagery!

Asher

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I think Bart Van Der Wolf has better sense of critical elements in color composition than I do.

Hi Asher, Doug,

I'm no expert, but I do dream in color!

To me, composition is the spatial arrangement of subjects/objects/shapes within the frame of our intended image. Color can enhance or subtract from such an arrangement. Color can even be the only compositional element, e.g. in a flat plane.

Warm colors have a tendency to attract attention and apparently bring objects closer. This probably has to do with the dangers of poisonous berries, and blood, and land on fire, and has become part of our instincts. It also creates an association with warmth and comfort, when used with moderation.

Cool colors have a tendency to push objects back into the background. That is probably related to blue skies, clear lakes and oceans and their surface reflection of skies, and shadows with ice and snow. It creates a sensation of inactivity and distance.

We usually cannot arrange colors in nature at will, so we'll have to do it by cropping and choosing a perspective point.

Sometimes subjects present themselves, e.g. autumn leaves against a blue sky, to enhance the sensations of close and distant, sometimes it helps to 'create' something that shakes the natural sensations by placing a cool colored object in front, and a warm object in the back, a bit like the above image (the effect could be strengthened by cool toning the foreground a bit more). Sometimes we can use the repetition of colored shapes in a certain pattern or direction.

Composition is served mostly by leaving stuff out of the image, and only include the shapes that build/strengthen a certain path along which the eye will scan the image. We can please the eye by choosing a golden section arrangement of shapes, or we can do the opposite and rattle the cage by placing an object at an edge and leaving the rest of the space simple, or achieve the same by using certain colors. Or, as Doug did, split the image in half, one half with detail, one half with nothingness (except for a little detail that then stands out).

Personally, I would have moved that foreground detail a bit further from the edge, and at the left of the image, to avoid our eyes leaving the image as we scan it from top left to bottom right (for left to right readers that is, some cultures prefer other arrangements of features to guide the movement of our eyes).

The question always is, what sensation do you want to achieve in the viewers mind? Pleasing, unsettling, intriguing, stability, instability, a surprise, a journey for the eye, awe, curiosity, you name it.

Just some thoughts, hope they help.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[doug anderson]

Thanks, Bart

 

[Asher Kelman]

Bart,

One advantage of admitting lack of expertise is it removes barriers to getting help. In this case, your contribution is so appreciated. You've presented, in a succinct fashion, the facts we always thought we knew, but never assembled effectively, so that they can now be used together creatively in composing with color.

Thanks for your generous help!

Asher

 

[doug anderson]

I think I will ultimately remove the detail on the right completely.