TAOP Part 3 Colour - Exercise 3 - Colour Relationships

TAOP Part 3 Colour

Exercise 3 - Colour Relationships

Colours opposite each other in the colour wheel have a balance which appears as a harmonious relationship to the eye. The six primary and secondary colours of the colour wheel make three complimentary pairs. However in these colour pairings the proportions of the colours are important in terms of balance. These are Red and Green, Orange and Blue, and Yellow and Violet.

German poet and playwright J.W. Von Goethe assigned values to these colours:

Yellow = 9
Orange = 8
Red = 6
Green = 6
Blue = 4
Violet = 3

Von Goethe also assigned proportions to the colour pairings suggesting these proportions would give the correct colour balance when captured in the frame, either painting or photographic. These are:

Red:Green   = 1:1
Orange:Blue = 1:2
Yellow:Violet = 1:3

Exercise 3a

In this exercise I have attempted to create 3 images which reflect the colour pairings in the colour proportions above suggested by Von Goethe

Red and Green (1:1)

I've captured here an image of a poinsettia's leaves which to my eye hold the primary colour of the red leaf balanced by the secondary colour of the green leaf. I've cropped the image and attempted to give equal balance to both these colours and also equal focus. This is more of an abstract type of image which perhaps when focusing mainly on an image of colours will become. That said I framed the image attempting to create diagonals using the veins in the leaves

Orange:Blue (1:2)

I've struggled with finding / creating this colour combination and I had left this out of the exercise until I started thinking about this for my assignment for colour, hence its in my assignment collection. I'm not 100% sure I have an exact colour proportion here of blue/orange 2:1 but I've tried to be a bit creative in using the blue and the orange elements of the flame from a match. I've used a macro lens which I've manually focused in the light on to the head off the match. I've then turned off the lights, light the match with another and taken the image. I've placed the match on the left vertical third and the match head on a zing point

Yellow:Violet (1:3)

This is an image of a tulip and hyacinth. My other half wasn't fooled when I bought these. I've used a macro lens to help capture the shapes of the hyacinth. I've framed as best as I could creating the yellow to violet 1: ration and in post processing cropped out some distracting elements. I used natural lighting to back light and help show the variations of shape and as this has weakened the colour slightly I've compensated by increasing the saturation slightly. There is lots of shape for the eye to discover in this image and I wonder if you noticed the deer shaped flower in the bottom right of the image.

Exercise 3b

The next set of images are photographs containing what I think are interesting colour combinations, the reasons I've detailed for each image

Red and Blue

This is an experiment using coloured paper to reflecting onto a kitchen utensil. Moving the paper around helps me get an almost 50-50 split of the colours. I've used a macro lens here and I will experiment further with this type of image


Black and Gold

They made a song out of this colour combination. Advertising and the colours used for consumer products will be subject to intense research. These colours aren't put together by chance. Batteries will feature strongly in a photographer's life


Yellow, Red and Green

The nation is split over this particular product and though its a household name so are the colour combinations against the black / dark brown of the visible product itself. Another example of how advertisers / brand sellers use colour in the products to attract customers. Some key colours used here