Colour relationships
Orange Blue.
From an image making perspective this combination of colours was pretty straightforward to find.
Red Green
This combination is readily out there and common place but finding something that made a good image was difficult.
Yellow Violet
This colour combination was extremely difficult to find. I could not find examples of this combination in the ratios need in the man made world. Even in nature it was difficult to find the colours close enough to make an image from them.
Colour combinations that appeal.
As this guy was walking towards me I could see how brightly coloured he looked as I was standing by this shop shutter. The orange paint on the shutter added to help with the balance of the colours as a whole. The black jacket provided a frame along with the black shutters. The green shirt with the yellow buttons and collar support the yellow hat. His red / pink glasses are balanced by the graffiti, all combine to make an image where the colours seem to jump out at you but feel punchy and balanced.
While in Japan I liked the graphic character of the pedestrian crossings which in some areas in Roppongi where freshly painted. I could see the graphic potential in the crossing but wanted to find a way to use that in an image. While I was walking around Ginza I tried a few experiments, varying the angle of the camera while trying to catch people or taxis on the crossing. In this image I thought about the lines of the crossing interacting with the frame first of all and took a few frames to see how that looked. Then I waited for a taxi to drive by. In this frame all the diagonal lines line up through the frame giving the red band across the taxi a more dynamic appearance. With the motion blur and the fortunate gesture of the driver, makes the image more dynamic, almost like the taxi is moving through the frame.
This scene, of a bus stop in China, seemed to have a lot of elements already. The trees framed the tower blocks giving the background height and the green trees nicely border the blue sky. The blue of the bus stop advert balanced with the trees and the sky. The lower third is nicely partitioned in the frame by the bus and the bus stop. The woman running toward the bus gives you an entry in to the frame. The woman running has a pink top on which forms a nice triangle with the man at the bus stop and a man to her right holding a pink bag. I’m not sure I saw all these relationships whilst taking the picture but that little bit of luck makes the image work.
What I liked about this stadium venue in China was the unusual design of the complex and, from my position on the path towards the complex, the perspective of the path and the lines as they go towards the stadium. While I was waiting for elements to present themselves I noticed this father and his son walking towards me but unusually with the son leading his dad who is listening to his mobile phone. This reversal of roles adds to the reading of the image. Also, I noticed the nice colour elements. The father and son with blue tops. The father with red shorts and the red banner with writing to the right of the frame all seemed to sit will with the greyness of the stadium complex and the sky. The colour elements grab your eye, as they are not competing with other colour elements in the frame. What I would have liked would be not to have the girl in yellow in the frame, which I think breaks the connection the reds are making. Even with the yellow in the frame the reds are enough to show a relationship. The message that this is China is communicated with the red of the shorts and the lettering in the banner.
