Photographic composition with Color Harmony
Unlike color contrast where we use 2 dominant colors somewhat apart in the color wheel, color harmony uses colors which are closer together in the color wheel. So such a photograph will usually use warmer colors (reds and yellows) or cooler colors (blues and greens). As you can see, there are very few colors in the portrait and those are in the same family. This was not a planned photo session. It just so happened that I was at home on a bright sunny day that created beautiful indirect warm light through the large window in the living room, and my younger son was wearing a shirt that went well with the warm light and the couch. I took this shot while I was taking a short break from work. In this situation the photographer has to take care to exclude anything of bright contrasting color that might be around disturb the harmony in the composition.This post is about photographic composition with color contrast. Colors that are on the opposite sides of the color wheel are in maximum contrast to each other – such as red and green or orange and blue. Using color contrast means to create a composition where the contrast between such opposing colors become the dominant element.
While on the subject of portraits, note that the eyes and the lips are the most important aspects in a close shot. Those must be sharp. In this case I opened the lens all the way to minimize the depth of field so the rest of the face melted away – increasing the impact of the eyes and the lips. Don’t worry too much if the above sounds a bit technical – at some point in future we will get down to those details.
I took this photograph from the boat that took us to the Heart Island – the most famous island of the 1000 Islands and home to the Boldt Castle. This is also about color harmony – at the cooler side of the color wheel. The colors are restricted to a narrow band. The stone house was neutral and almost monochromatic and kind of silhouetted against the bright sky – so it was not disturbing the color harmony. It was a bright hot day but fortunately there was enough cloud cover to keep the lighting contrast manageable. Harsh contrast does not go well with color harmony.
Two final comments: First, you can see this is one of the rare cases, where the focal point of the picture is at the center – contrary to the golden rule; yet (to me) the composition looks balanced because of the shoreline in the front and the trees. Second, the composition would not work if the horizon was splitting the frame in half – but it is slightly off center following the golden rule.
