Color Pop

Hello and Happy New Year! I trust you all had a wonderful transition from 2022 and 2023 and I hope that you have some fun adventures lined-up for this new year! I thought I would start this new year but talking about something fun that you can do with your photos. There aren’t any limitations except for your own imaginations. Let’s look into this unique world of Colorpop and see what you can do with it!

Color pop can do a few things more intensely by acutely moving your eye around a photograph with much more intent either by directing your eye to a specific point, as in the photo to the the left or, by moving your eye around an image in a particular way.

Then, there is the photo taken on the right. This was a small plaza, tiny more likely, in Venice, Italy. So blue was a primary color that I chose to dwell on here. It gave its way around the photograph and it presents itself bigger moving left to right. In fact, the blue, although noticeable in between the roll-up door on the left and the sign on the right, are so small that your eye is immediately drawn to the roll-up door and then moves toward the sign on the right, all the while picking-up on the smaller blues in the middle of those 2 points.

Another example of leading lines and color pop. This time yellow is the primary color and I move your eye from the bottom of the image to the middle. Once your eye hits the target, the door, then it feels free to roam around the rest of the black and whiteness of the image. Yellow is much more stark than the blue in the above shot, that it immediately demands the attention of your eye and won’t let go until you reach the end. This was a narrow walkway in Boston, Massachusetts and it really does pay off, in many dividends, to go places in the Autumn. If you have a desire to get into color pop, you can’t beat the colors that are provided in Autumn.

Now, there are so many shades of grey going on in this shot that, if I didn’t highlight the Heron’s eye, then my guess is that your eyes would have gone right to the dark part of the wing in the lower right of the image. Making a center point a specific color, you direct the eye to a place that will require it to expand outwards from that point. Yellow to the stark white points and then the darkest points next. The normal levels of grey are the last to be recognized.

You can even provide a depth in your philosophy that can compel people to think in ways that have meaning. For instance, to the left, once viewed, one could speculate that not everything is black and white. You could think about having a rough time in your life and hoping for bluer skies to arrive soon. If you allow yourself, you can feel something, you can experience an emotion in an image if you’re open to it. Photography, like in music, if done correctly, can inspire you to feel something. That is what I shoot for, to inspire feeling. Sometimes I’m successful and that is the best feeling. To cause someone to experience emotion after viewing your work, that’s the best non-verbal compliment I could get.

That does it for me. I hope you enjoyed this trip down color pop lane and I hope you’re able to incorporate some of it into your photography. If you’re a strictly cellphone photographer then, don’t you worry, they have apps that contain color pop capabilities for your photos. Drop me an email and I’m happy to provide more info on those apps. Or email me about anything you want…I’m happy to respond. Until the next time, take care of yourselves, and each other, give more than you receive and always pay it forward!

Until the next time…be and travel well!