Colour Theory Photographers Should know.

a big thank you to squarespace for sponsoring this week's video if you need a website or a domain go to squarespace.com forward slash james for 10 off your first purchase hello everybody uh i've made some progress this week as you can see i've got frames all the way across my wall now with the exception of one that's missing i've just got a picture up there with no frame that's because it's this frame which arrived like this in the post there is another one coming a replacement but hopefully that doesn't take another four weeks fingers crossed

you'll you'll be pleased to know though you'll be pleased to know that uh this video is not all about frames it's about color theory which is a massive topic that i couldn't hope to cover in one single youtube video but today i'm going to focus in on color harmonies for photography and art generally basically which to be honest in itself is a massive topic but i'm going to stick to the basics and then i'll talk about why it's important or at least advantageous to know about this stuff when it comes to your photos uh right

we'll kick off this probably looks a bit weird from here but it's my computer mouse it's just not quite in frame uh yeah so we'll kick off with a photo that i took in the pharaoh islands as you can see this photo is largely green so let's get rid of these i should probably explain i i've printed this off i was gonna say i've made it but that would have oversold it to be honest i just found it on the internet and printed it and i've also got these little white disks that i just cut

around a five pence piece to put on the color wheel all the best things in life are simple i think uh yes anyway as you can see here in the pharaoh islands there is a green which is the key color and then the complementary color will be directly opposite this green on the color wheel and this isn't just applicable for green and red or orange and orangey red so this works all the way around the wheel so every time i move one of these discs if i move the other disc to the opposite side you

will get a complimentary color so if we look at some other images as you can see here there's blue and orange so blue orange another example blue and orange another example blue and orange i like blue and orange or orange and teal as has become very popular on instagram so yeah that's the first and most popular color harmony complementary colors very simple that one uh next up if we look at this photo that i took in greenland this is a color harmony that is called analogous so it's blues and it's teals and turquoises and a

couple of little purples but basically even though there are slight different shades of colors and slightly different colors all of the colors that appear in the photo appear from the same segment of the color circle yeah i keep calling it a color circle it's a color wheel i don't know why color circle it is technically a circle and obviously this doesn't have to happen with blues it can also happen with other colors so here is a photo that i took a few months ago in the autumn and in here you've got sort of burnt oranges

and reds you've got yellows a couple more oranges that sort of thing but basically all the colors are bunched together on the color wheel it's going to say circle again then but they are importantly from different colors they're not all exactly the same color if they were all the same color but just different shades of that color then that would be a color harmony called monochromatic which we've come to associate with black and white but actually monochromatic just means one color so here is an example of that a photo that i took in when it's

pass last summer so there's greens basically different shades but they're all green so on the color wheel it looks like that now next up is a color harmony known as triadic and to be honest there's no prizes for guessing what that means correct triangle so if we look at this photo that i took of emily in sri lanka for example there are sort of peachy orangy peachy things i don't know it's probably somewhere about there for emily's skirt and the rocks and there's obviously blue in her shirt and in the sky so something like that

and then there's yellowy greens for the trees something like that and together they all form a triangle now there is a harmony there's kind of between complementary and triadic and it's called split complementary uh so here is another photo that i took in greenland and if we take the key color which i would suggest is blue but it's kind of like a a tealy blue so something like this let's say over here and if we were to place one of these little markers uh in a complementary fashion so directly across on the color wheel somewhere

like that you'd end up with like a really dark burnt orange but actually i'd say in this instance in this photo the sky is kind of more like that something more in line with that and then you've got the boat which is just plain red so you end up with a sort of y shape instead of a straight complementary color which is just directly across so you're kind of like complimentary and also kind of like triadic another example of this so this is a photo i took in italy and as you can see it's kind

of like the orange of the boats and then you've got kind of a yellowy green as the trees and then you've also got a nice light blue for the sky and the reflection in the water and again you get this sort of y shape and then finally last one i promise is square and again no prizes for guessing what shape that takes uh so we've looked at this photo that i took in norway for example there's quite a dark blue and then there's like a a nice muted green and it's quite a muted kind of

dark yellow as well flowers and then there's the red of the hut and that all makes a square i mean there is also like a turquoise as well i don't have a fifth disk and it would sort of ruin the square really yeah i mean all your best photos don't have to fit into these most popular color harmonies but knowing about them can certainly help i mean i would definitely understand if you sat there thinking well why are you telling me about that why do i need to know about color harmonies i mean i go

out my front door with my camera and the colors are just what they are in the world i can't exactly change them i get that but there are two reasons i think it's important to know about this stuff number one is that when we go out and take photos typically we're looking for nice shapes we're looking for things that we think might be able to tell nice stories we're looking for contrast we're looking for texture we're looking for light and i think if we're looking out for color it will also help us to find more

compositions and if you're aware of these harmonies and you can see them in nature then that a lot of the time can give you ideas or opportunities for taking more photos the second reason that you might want to know about this stuff is that it can really help you in your editing and it can help bring out the color and therefore the impact of your photos so for example the very first image that i showed you the pharaoh islands if the grass in that image wasn't so green if it was more of a like a

brown like sort of more over here on the color wheel then the complementary color of that just get rid of these ones would be a really dark blue and therefore i could adjust the color of my jacket in photoshop or lightroom actually using the brush tool in lightroom but i've always used photoshop to do that so old habits die hard so yeah knowing about the color wheel and the color harmonies that work within the color wheel can help you bring out uh details in your photos and can help them look more complementary or triadic and

i mean i'm not suggesting that you need to leave your house with one of these and you need to walk up to bits of grass and i wonder what shade of green that is and therefore what color coat i need to be wearing in the photo you don't need to do that but it helps to have a general knowledge of what colors work together and why they work together i think that can improve both as i say your in-field compositions but also your editing style as well anyway yeah hopefully that was useful if you've got

any questions stick them in the comments i'll try and answer them i'm not by any means an expert when it comes to color theory but uh knowing just a bit of the basics as i've hopefully explained in an okay fashion today really um does have its benefits so thank you for watching and also a big thank you to this week's video sponsor squarespace so if you're looking for a place to show your perfectly color harmonized photos online then look no further than squarespace so with squarespace there's loads of templates to choose from there's a ton

of customization available and you don't need to know a single line of code to be able to make an amazing looking website which is why i love it because i don't know a single line of code so you can get a free trial of squarespace by going to squarespace.com and after that if you'd like to make a purchase then go to squarespace.com for 10 off that first purchase and i really recommend checking them out and a big thank you to squarespace for their continued support of this channel much appreciated and i really appreciate you watching

as well and hopefully next week i'll have uh all my frames available does that look weird maybe it doesn't anyway thank you for watching [Music] you