Choosing objects to photograph in color requires that you be selective about how and where you aim your camera. To balance ambient lighting, you might need to shift your body position, sometimes dancing about the object to get the right light. As you move to the left or right or up or down, the object takes on different hues because light bounces off it in a variety of directions.

Sometimes (like when photographing the cardinal I describe earlier), you have but a small frame of opportunity to catch the subject's color. You must be quick, simply taking your camera from your nightstand and snapping a picture. To achieve optimal color exposure, set your camera to a general automatic mode (which I discuss further in Chapter 5) in case a photographic moment presents itself on short notice.

You have millions of ways to mix colors to create a mood. For instance, take the bright colors of fast-food restaurants. The colors that corporations use to sell fast food make you hungry, so you buy more food.

In order to make sense of color in a photo, apply what you know or see around you. Look for complementary and contrasting colors, both in man-made objects and in nature. You don't want to precisely match colors, like the dreaded bridesmaid syndrome of dyeing shoes to match the color of a dress.

Complementing or contrasting color is more on the order of choosing a color range (family) or of finding a snippet of color in two things: like black shoes that go with an ensemble of black-and-white houndstooth. The boy's shirt in Figure 8-4 complements the other earth-toned shades surrounding him. Think of choosing colors in a photograph in the same terms as picking out clothes for an outfit that you want to wear, or perhaps you want your children to wear for a big family event.

Figure 8-4. The colors here work because they match.

Also, while training your eye to work with color, notice how it sometimes tricks the human eye. Figure 8-5 compares the contrast effects of different color backgrounds for the same red square. Red appears more brilliant against a black background and somewhat duller against the white background. In contrast with orange, red appears lifeless; in contrast with blue-green, it exhibits brilliance and depth. Notice, too, that the red square appears larger on black than on other background colors.

Figure 8-5. Background and foreground colors contrast differently, creating perceptual differences.

If you are color-blind, don't let that stop you from taking art photographs. Think of it this way: People (designers and your potential subjects) have taken the time to do your color-matching work for you. Fashion designers mix colors to match the latest trends. They know what they are doing. They're trained in color theory, so that if you take a close-up shot of your Aunt Bea in her new Chanel blouse, the color choices have already been defined in the clothes themselves.

Sign makers, architects, and artists spend a lot of time making sure that the colors they use work together. For example, the sign in Figure 8-6 contains a mix of vibrant color, wonderful by itself. The color of the photo, however, is enhanced by the magnificent blue sky behind it (thank you, Mother Nature!).

Figure 8-6. Contrasting background and foreground colors create perceptual differences.

Figure 8-7 shows two shots of part of a candy wrapper: one shot under tungsten light (on top) and one shot under a fluorescent light. I shot these at different angles to enhance the color differences between the two.

Figure 8-7. Angle and light source create different color shades.

The first thing that you do as a film photographer before a shoot is decide what kind of film you will use: That is, choose the film's sensitivity to light. You can purchase film with speeds from ISO 100 to ISO 800 at just about any drug store around the world. Films with higher and lower ISOs are available at specialty camera shops. Although digital photographers have a wider choice in ISO settings (some digital cameras have lower and higher settings than are commonly found with film), they can also set their ISO settings to many of the same values used for film.

Noise isn't always bad. In fact, sometimes it's preferred to achieve a certain effect, as shown in Figure 8-10, which features a shot of a French town taken through a plane window on the way to Paris. Here, noise makes the photo look almost like a pointillist painting.

Figure 8-10. Noise comprises tiny dots that can appear at high ISOs.

Color exists in various proportions in any lighting situation. Its hue, tone, and intensity depends upon ambient light, or lighting that seems to come from all directions (rather than from a single source) and fills a scene, shedding light on the objects you're photographing. Your camera measures ambient light with a value known as color temperature. Essentially, color temperature is the blueness or orangeness of the light that you see.

Color temperature variances can be corrected by covering your lens with a filter, offsetting odd-colored tones that are created by ambient light. For example, with a conventional film camera, you need to use a skylight filter, one that reduces the blue tones that occur at high color temperatures. While your digital camera likely has both automatic and manual white balance settings, you may still find the need (or desire) to use photographic filters in front of your lens. Your white balance choice may include Daylight, Shade (or Cloudy), Fluorescent, and Incandescent (or Tungsten). Generally speaking, you'll leave your camera set to Auto, but there may be times that you want to use an incorrect white balance setting for special effects. You might, for example, make a snow scene bluer by taking the photo with white balance set to Incandescent/Tungsten. Or you might want to make an indoor fireplace or candle scene seem even warmer and cozier by shooting with white balance set to Daylight.

Knowledge of color temperature with respect to your white balance settings can ensure that you get the optimum color results because ambient light has a color temperature value. Different light sources emit light at different color temperatures, causing your picture to lean either to a red or blue hue. A high color temperature shifts light toward blue (as in Figure 8-11), and a low color temperature shifts light toward red hues (as in Figure 8-12).

Figure 8-11. When color temperature is high, more blue light exists.

Figure 8-12. When color temperature is low, like in a production, more red light exists.

Tweaking white balance settings also enables you to deceive your camera into giving you results that will enhance your images. Toying with your white balance settings can turn deserts into icy retreats, prickly and cold, or set the indoors afire with a global warming–like result — color science that makes art "art."

Take some time and play around with your camera's white balance settings adding warmth (by increasing reds) or coolness (by increasing blue) when you're photographing in daylight. You'll need only a little while to determine your favorite settings to fool — I mean, set — your camera. Figure 8-13 illustrates the relationship between sources of light and color temperature, showing how the color temperature changes with different ambient light around your subject/scene.

Figure 8-13. Low color temperatures (indoors) appear with red hues; high color temperatures (outdoors) appear with blue hues.

If you set the camera to a shade white balance while taking a picture in broad daylight, your digital camera adds more red tones into the scene. Check the Kelvin color temperature chart (refer to Figure 8-13) to see that overcast conditions are about 6000° K. Light shade conditions are about 7100° K. Therefore, setting your white balance to Shade adds more red tones than setting your camera to Overcast when you shoot in daylight. Some digital cameras allow you to enter the Kelvin temperature for your white balance so that you have maximum control over the amount of red or blue tones that you add to your shot.

The Auto White Balance (AWB) mode on your camera uses its sensors to calculate the white balance for the image. Usually, the Kelvin (K) temperature range for AWB is 3000–7000° K. Using AWB normally provides a good image albeit with some color temperature distortion that you see with film — for example, the same blues and reds as seen in Figures 8-11 and 8-12, respectively.

Figure 8-14. Dark hues hide colors.

For the most natural color results in a picture taken with a digital camera, set the white balance indoors to your digital camera's indoor (incandescent or fluorescent) setting. If you're shooting outdoors in the shade, set it to the Shade/Overcast setting.

Setting your digital camera to automatic is your best bet because if you go to photograph a crimson cardinal outside your window without having changed the white balance from your last (indoor) shot to either automatic or daylight, your picture will be a throw-away.

The film for a traditional camera and the sensor for a digital camera are optimized for daylight color temperature. Whether you use film and then digitize your negatives, or shoot a picture using the sensor on a digital camera, your picture will edge to one hue or the other (blue or red) as your light source varies unless the white balance setting is adjusted, either automatically or manually.

Experimenting with settings can create interesting effects — effects that people might just buy and hang on their walls. If you've made a mistake but find your image looking good, don't dump it. It could be a valuable print. Fortunately, when you manipulate your image in Photoshop, tweaking your picture to normal color levels is fairly easy — and by normal, I mean the levels that your eye would see.

The beauty of simplicity in color

Santorini, Paros, and Mykonos are Greek beach-bumming heavens, but you can also find a photographer's paradise in Greece. A mix of the Greek summer sun, the ubiquitous stucco walls, and the soft Mediterranean colors combine for some of the greatest photo ops in the world. Add in smooth arches and a couple of beveled edges, and you're almost in photography heaven. What finishes it off is the blue sky that curves through to perfect the composition.

A photographer's job is to capture the beauty of the simplicity of colors around us — to make us aware of things we might not notice. So take the time to look around and see what others might not.

Heavy overexposure will lighten your print and move your colors to white. Underexposing, conversely, tends to work in an opposite manner, ranging from deepening colors to blacking out your entire photo.

All cameras, digital and film, rely on their light meter to measure the light around the lens and within the frame of your shot. For ordinary exposures, most cameras use an average of all the light that the frame has in it.

However, using an average of all the light in your frame sometimes just doesn't do the job of reproducing the bright colors in the frame. You have to help it along by using the exposure compensation settings that allow you to take in more or less light in your frame. When you reduce the amount of light that you let in the camera, you deepen the colors of the image. Tauntingly deep colors can attract potential buyers of your photos.

Play with these setting to see which work best for your shots. You can over-ride how your camera exposes your film or the sensor to light. You can lighten or darken the image by using the EV (exposure value) compensation, using positive and negative fractional numbers in decimal form, like +1.0 or −0.5.

Decreasing the exposure by 0.5 (depending on the brightness of the sun) will do a much better job of saturating colors in your image than waiting to do it in Photoshop later.

Figure 8-16 shows how shots taken at different exposure compensations (0, −.66, and −1.33, top to bottom) bring out the color of flowers.

Figure 8-16. Change exposure compensation to deepen colors.

Some art photography provides viewers with a clear focus of an object or a part of an object, like this bridge in Hanoi, Vietnam (see Figure 8-17). The color red among the contrasting green background of foliage and water provides a clear focus based upon color. The f-stop was set high so that the picture has a clear foreground and background. The exposure compensation was set to −.5, making the colors appear saturated.

Figure 8-17. Underexposing the shot slightly helps saturate the red of the bridge.

If this morning's cardinal came back at noon and the sun was shining brightly on it, the chances are great that the red of his feather coat would scream loudly off of a printed page, almost pop-like. You'll be lucky if you get time to adjust your exposure compensation in time to photograph it in the deep reds that you would hope to get. If your specialty is photographing wildlife in deep colors, you might want to have your camera preset to your favorite exposure compensation setting.

In Av (automatic) mode, if your f-stop is high (for a clear background and great depth of field) in a lower light environment, you risk blurring your picture because your camera will automatically decrease the shutter speed.

Tall downtown buildings, trees with wide girths, and very cloudy days — all casting shadows over your world — can turn photo opportunities from glamorous to pitiful. Shade can present a challenge when trying to capture color. However, you can use shade to your advantage, especially when contrasting bright and shadowed areas, such as you see in Figure 8-18. Also note in the figure that even the shady area has variations — some areas are darker than others.

Figure 8-18. Shady spots can have mixtures of light.

Think of shade as a kind of mini-night: a time when color is blackened. Keeping your shutter open longer (a slower shutter speed) solves some of the light problems that you may have with shade. To fool the camera into exposing the scene a little longer, use your camera's Manual mode, keep the same f-stop, and slightly increase the time the shutter is open. Using a tripod will help to eliminate blur that tends to creep in when you make a handheld exposure with a longer exposure time.

When taking a photo that includes areas both sunny and shady, you should consider using your camera's spot metering mode (if offered). This enables you to designate which part of the image should be properly exposed. (With some cameras, you point the camera at the area you want the camera to consider for setting the exposure, press the shutter button halfway down, and then reframe the shot before taking the photo.) Remember, too, that when shooting a subject in the shade with a bright background, you can set your camera to fire the flash (force flash) to illuminate the subject. You'll hear the term "fill flash" used for this technique.

Color changes according to the light available, which in turn is affected by environmental variables and atmospheric conditions, including pollution, haze/fog, the season, and time/temperature of day.

Generally, the more polluted the sky is, the less intense the sun will be. Not only is there less contrast from the surface of an object to a background of smog, but you also end up with pixel separation of the browns and blues when your picture is digitized and enlarged.

On a sunny day in an area with heavy air pollution, haze on the horizon is likely. You might find this to be distracting or even that it ruins what could be an otherwise beautiful image. The more the light is scattered by air pollution, the poorer your color saturation can be.