Blog & News

Using colour to add atmoshere - My 'Reader's Advice' article published in issue 76 of Digital Camera magazine, September 2008

Colour is a very powerful tool. The right colour combination can dramatically lift the mood of your images, add a personal touch and bring them to life. My original image of the Brighton street works from the compositional point of view but lacks the right mood. This is because the original cyan and red hues don’t go together too well. Changing the cyan hue to a deeper blue and the red hue to a bright orange creates a better colour contrast and transforms the overall image. If you are not sure what colours to mix, get familiar with the ‘colour wheel’ to help you with your colour combinations.

Our towns and cities are full of bold colours. Look for interesting streets with colourful surroundings – e.g. buildings. Bold colours will inject life to any street shot, add mood and character to your images and lift them above the average.

I see Brighton as a colourful, funky, and individual city and I try to convey these feelings in my images. This particular image shows a new pedestrian prioritised street in Brighton called the New Road. I choose a bright late afternoon to photograph it to achieve good detail and clarity and to preserve the bold colours in the buildings in the background. Interesting people can also add impact to your street shots but remember to keep a reasonable distance. The three people proudly ‘walking the New Road’ in the image, enhanced the whole scene and without them the shot would be lifeless. I liked the fact they were all perfectly in step and they were not aware of being photographed. I spotted them in the distance and I waited until they got closer to me then had just enough time to take about four shots.

It pays to have your camera ready in one of the programmed modes. In this case, my camera was set in the aperture priority mode. I used an aperture of f 11 to achieve overall sharpness and the shot was taken at 1/80 sec. ISO 200 was selected. With street photography, you need to work reasonably fast because if you fiddle with the settings for too long, you may miss a great shot. And remember – have fun with the editing later. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different colour hues. Boost the saturation to make colours bright, mix warm with cool or bold with subtle. Add your own personal touch.