The first step of learning any subject is to understand its basics. Be it rocket science or as simple as photography. It will not only strengthen your skills but will also take your photography to a higher level.
I will be covering the basics of photography in a series of articles, explaining each topic in detail. The first in the series is Colour Theory that plays an integral part in enhancing your composition and invoking the right emotions in your audience’s mind.
What is Colour Theory?
The Colour Theory talks about the harmony of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary colours, organised in a wheel based on their wavelength (distance between two successive peaks of a wave).
The Primary palette comprises three colours are Red, Blue and Yellow. These are called primary because they can’t be made using any other colour. On mixing the Primary colours, you obtain Secondary colours Green, Orange and Violet. Similarly, on mixing Primary and Secondary colours, you get tertiary colours, Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Violet and Red-Violet.
A little history of Color Wheel
In the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the visible spectrum of light while performing the Prism experiment. We all know about the classic Prism experiment, where the white light passing through the prism bends and gets split into seven colours (based on their wavelength). His research led to the discovery of the Colour Wheel and the relation between colours.
Why is it important?
Every colour invokes emotion in the human mind. For example, red invokes the feeling of passion, anger or hunger. Therefore, most Food apps use Red as their primary colour. Similarly, Blue signifies faith, integrity, wisdom, confidence, etc.
Hence, if you use the correct harmony of colours in your composition, it will help you to invoke the right feelings in your audience’s mind. You can achieve this by applying the Color Harmony Rule in your photography. The six rules that you can make use of are as follows:
Analogous colour scheme
In this scheme, colours are placed next to each other. It gives a rich monochromatic look to the picture.
Monochromatic colour scheme
This scheme uses colours of a single hue but might vary in tone, shade and tint. This type of colour scheme produces simplistic images with no discord.
Complimentary colour scheme
Uses the two opposite colours on the wheel, like Red-Green. The colours are highly contrasting but complement each other’s tonality.
Triadic colour scheme
Uses evenly spaced out colours on the wheel, for example, the Primary colour palette (RYB) and the Secondary palette (OGV).
Square colour scheme
In this scheme, the colours are evenly spaced out around the circle. It works best when one colour is dominant.
Compound colour scheme
It is also known as the Split complementary colour scheme. It consists of one colour acting as the primary and two colours adjacent to its complementary colour. It helps to create a palette with less contrast.
Here’s a link to Adobe’s colour wheel that will help you understand the schemes and decide your palette.
