(upbeat music)
- Hi it's Tim of Tim Boyer Photography.
This week's tutorial
is about Color Theory.
This is part three in a three-part series
where we talked about negative space
in bird photography,
minimalism in bird photography,
and now we're gonna
talk about Color Theory.
Today we're learning about Color Theory.
And we'll look at it the same way we did
the other two parts.
What is Color Theory?
Why is Color Theory important,
and how can we get Color
Theory in our bird photos?
So what is Color Theory?
Color Theory is typically defined
as the art and science of using color.
But for instance, how we
use color to evoke emotion
and responses from our viewers?
We have to ask ourselves, what
do we want the viewer to feel
when they see our images?
We're gonna cover briefly, just a couple
of the basic things here
because I had this wrong.
It's been a long time since I've learned
about Color Theory in grade school.
The primary colors are
red, yellow, and blue.
They're not RGB, red, green, blue.
I had to relearn that because I'm thinking
as a photographer, red, green, blue.
But really in Color Theory, it's yellow.
So these are the primary colors.
There's no mix of any colors in them.
If we go to secondary
colors, secondary colors
are orange and green and purple.
Orange is 50% red, 50% yellow.
And green is 50% yellow, 50% blue.
We get that mix and those
are the secondary colors.
And then you get down
to the tertiary colors
where there's even, this is
a little bit more red in it.
This one's a little bit more yellow in it.
And so it goes on and on and on
and there are a billion colors this way.
It can just be subdivided
and subdivided forever.
If we have analogous colors,
they're next to each other
on the color wheel like this.
Much like we have in this burrowing owl,
this all the color palettes here,
the yellows, browns
are all kind of similar
and close to each other.
We have complimentary
colors when they're across
from each other in the color
wheel like orange and blue,
orange and teal, and so those
are complimentary colors
and they have more contrast
in them, generally.
And we get that naturally
in the Lazuli Bunting
with its teal and orange,
teal head and orange breast.
And then we have monochrome
colors, which that would be
if we just used the oranges
or we just used the yellows
or just used the blues.
In this particular case, with this Willet,
its gray and even the blue
has a lot of gray in it
and so we have that kind of
monochrome look going on.
There are some foundations
or fundamental elements
that are also happen with color.
And that's basically, hue,
saturation and luminance.
And these can help
define what the color is.
And we're used to this because
we have hue, saturation
and luminance sliders
over in the HSL panel in Lightroom.
And so hue is basically
what color is the color.
Yeah right, what color green is it?
Saturation is the intensity of the color
and luminance is the
lightness, the tinting
or the shading of the color.
And so we can mix the color
with some light or black
and we can change the shade there.
We can use the saturation and
make the colors more intense.
And then hue, we can change the greenness
or the blueness of something.
So why is Color Theory important?
How od you want the audience to feel
when they look at your photograph?
If you went to the Palouse
in the spring time,
you would have these
bold complementary colors
of green and red.
Very high contrast
between the two of them.
If you go there in the late
summer or during harvest,
late July, August, September,
you're going to get
more warm golden tones.
So just by changing seasons here,
we change the color palette
and we change the emotional impact
that the images have.
So why is Color Theory
important in bird photography?
Use Color Theory in your images
so they're more pleasing
and easier to look at.
Colors can be used to draw
or lead the audience eyes
to certain parts of the images
and if we use warm
colors like this, we have
this warm, comforting mood.
If we have more blue tones like this one,
maybe it's a little bit more calmer.
With the lavenders and
the pinks in this one
have a different feeling than
the orange in the prior image.
Different colors symbolically
mean different things
and different colors have a
metabolic impact on humans
when they see these colors.
So red, symbolically, danger,
anger, ambition, passion
but red actually increases
the metabolic rate
of respiration and blood pressure.
It can have that impact on you personally
or on your viewers.
Orange, symbolically is
creativity and energy and optimism
but orange also increases
oxygen to the brain
and can stimulate mental activity.
And then yellow, symbolically
is happy and active.
It also emotionally evokes this
cheerful, pleasant feelings
and it can stimulates
muscle and mental activity.
Green, symbolically is the color of nature
and medicine and health,
growth and balance.
But it's also the most
restful color to our eye
and so if you have a presentation
and it's been high intense
and impactful, you might wanna put in
some green backgrounds or something.
Some greenness so that the
viewer has a chance to rest
before the next action packed sequence.
And then blue, we think
of that symbolically
as calmness, wisdom, trust, peace,
but this can slow down the metabolic rate
and you can have a calming
and tranquil effect.
The color has that impact on people.
And then purple, we associate
with wealth and ambition.
It has an emotional
impact on people as well.
Now we have to talk about white and black.
So white is more purity,
peace, innocence, faith.
And it evokes a sense of safety in people.
Where black is kind of all over the place.
You can have, you can wear a black tuxedo
and it's like wealth and
you can also wear black
and it's a funeral.
So black is more mysterious, it's unknown.
So how do we get Color
Theory in our images.
The first thing is these seasonal changes.
And we mentioned this with the Palouse,
but here's an example of
how it goes with the bird.
We have this bright red cardinal
and this green background
in the spring time,
and it's a contrasting,
complementary colors.
It's very bold, it's very bright
and it's very impactful.
There's an intensity to the colors there.
Whereas if we take this cardinal
and have a different kind of a background,
a warm, soothing background,
warm color palette here,
then we're gonna have a nice comforting,
warmer feeling about this image
than the prior one where
it's more contrasting.
Sometimes we just wanna add a pop of color
with the bird, so this
yellow warbler is a big,
bright pop of yellow and
to get a shot like this,
sometimes you have to move right or left,
up or down to change the background.
So I wanted a blue
background with the yellow.
So blue and yellow, they're
both primary colors.
It's a little bit more bold.
It's not as bold as the green and red.
But you still get that kind of intensity
and that big pop because of
the light blue background.
With this Western Sandpiper,
our eyes see warm colors first.
This is kind of a dark but
kind of a warm-colored image.
Some rufous coloring and some browns
in the bird's back there.
And we see that detail and
we see the eye of the bird
and then our eye kind of
goes to the white spot.
So warm colors are dominant colors
and cool colors, or lighter
colors are recessive.
And so we can lead the
eye through the frame
by where we put warm colors
and where we put cool colors.
We can use color to
create impactful things
like the rule of thirds in composition.
This was as close as I could
come to having a white bird
in a third of the frame.
But it even becomes more prevalent
if you're a landscape photographer,
because the green is 2/3 of the image
and the blue sky is 1/3 of the image.
We can use compositional
rules like the rule of thirds
with color to create and impactful image.
And then with this Whimbrel,
we have this beautiful
composition of left to right,
top to bottom, angled through the frame
so the eye lands here
and goes down the bird.
But we have this white element
here that's distracting.
Our eyes are drawn to those
white elements like that.
So just delete it in
Photoshop or in Lightroom.
We also have some tools in Lightroom
for changing how the image looks.
So we have the original
photo here of this Whimbrel.
It's a pretty, monochromatic image.
It's all kind of the same tan color.
But let's see what we can do with a couple
of the adjustments in post processing.
If I change the color
profile to Adobe Landscape,
I've added some warmth to the image.
I've added some yellows to the image.
So here's before.
Here's the next one and it
warms up the image a little bit.
Now if I change the white
balance from as shot to cloudy,
see how much orange it adds to the image.
So I can determine how much
warm I wanna add to the image
by choosing different profiles
and by choosing different white balances.
The most important takeaway
is I want you think about
colors in the images and understand
what you're conveying with them.
This image is a combination of two things.
It has this nice, restful,
soothing green background.
And then the wings of the
Calliope hummingbird are blurred,
which gives the image even more softness.
And so it's a very soothing image.
Whereas in contrast, we have this one
where we have reds and blues and greens
and it's a very bold, striking image.
And there's much more intensity here.
And there's not a lot of calmness in this,
in this kind of image.
And it's all because of the color.
And then here again, this
is like the final example,
this Western bluebirds, the
male's feeding the female
before she goes in to incubate the eggs.
So she's imprinting on him
so that he'll continue to feed her.
But we get this nice
yellow and greenish kind of
tint in the background,
very calming, parental,
safe kind of feeling.
If you want to learn all the
necessary field techniques
for photographing birds in the field,
pick up a copy of my book,
"Learn The Art of Bird Photography",
the complete field guide for beginning
and intermediate birders
and bird photographers.
It's available on Amazon as
a Kindle and trade paperback.
And if you haven't already,
hit the subscribe button
on the way out and also,
click on that bell icon
so you don't miss any future videos.
Hey, thanks a lot for watching this week.
I hope you enjoyed
learning about Color Theory
and you can start to use
it in your bird images.
I'll see you in the next video.
Thanks a lot, bye!
(upbeat music)
