Exercise 3.3 - Color Relationships

This exercise consist of two parts. The idea of the first part was to create three pictures, each representing the primary and secondary color in given proportions. The second part implied taking pictures of different color combinations, that just would appeal to me, without considering theoretical balance between colors.

Part 1.

1. Red:Green - 1:1

As weather is still quite ugly here in Estonia, I did not have an option other than taking pictures of artificial objects and working with macro. Here, I have pictured some advertisings that created a perfect combination of red and green in proportion 1:1.

145mm; f /7.1; 1/5 sec

2. Orange:Blue - 1:2 

Here I am not quite sure that proportion is 1:2. It could be worth using a different background.  

90mm; f/18.0; 1/6 sec

3. Yellow:Violet - 1:3 

In this case I am quite happy with proportion of the colors, though the picture itself might look too simplistic.  

90mm; f/18.0; 15 sec

Part 2.

1. This picture looks a bit like a saturation scale in Photoshop, though nothing this picture has not been processed at all. The interesting thing here is the transformation of the light rose/violet color to red, and then to the black. Black sky on the top and dark buildings on the bottom give certain balance to the gradual red. 

78mm; f/ 5.3; 1/5 sec

2. In this picture spots of different colors on light background as well as diagonal created by the flowers create the balance and make this shot dynamic, though the yellow color in the front looks more dominating than other two colors of the flowers.

18mm; f/ 3.5; 1/30 sec

3. On this picture the boxes are not in specific order and they also are not the same color. I would say, they create more disbalance here than balance the color scheme of the landscape. However, it does not seem to disturb the composition as a whole. If not these colorful spots on the shot, there would not be any sense to take a picture of this place at all. They create the composition and colors diversity is the most interesting part of it.  

38mm; f/9.0; 1/125 sec

The most important lesson that I have learned from this exercise is that though there are some standard color relationships ratios that put two colors in some kind of balance, the balance of color itself is not a goal. It might be used, when taking pictures, but in many cases, colors that are not in balance create more interesting image.