Vibrant photos leap off the page, with the colors capturing the viewer’s attention and refusing to let go.
Of course, getting good color results from your photography isn’t always easy. Even when you think you’ve picked a great shot, in the end, the colors may seem washed out or not as dynamic as you’d hoped. It can be frustrating to the point that you might want to give up on trying to capture photos featuring brilliant colors entirely!
Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to try and bring those colors to life. Once you get a feel for how to make some of the colors in your shots really sing, it will seem like second nature to you. To help with this, here are a few photography tips that will get those true colors shining through in no time.
One problem that people run into when trying to photograph robust colors is that they attempt to bring out multiple colors within a single shot.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t work most of the time; You just end up with a mess of color that falls flat more often than it pops. Before shooting, decide what exactly you’re trying to bring out in the scene. Stage your shots so that your chosen color will be front and center in the viewer’s experience, letting it dominate the shot. This helps ensure that the color you’re trying to capture retains its radiance.
If there are multiple colors that you need to separate, you can make use of aperture to bring your chosen color into sharper focus while blurring the rest.
This approach works best if your chosen color appears on a single object or in a single location, allowing the rest of the scene to simply fade away from it. The other colors will still be present, but because they’re relegated to the background they won’t be able to dominate the color you’re trying to bring to life.
Few things can kill your attempts at vibrant color photography faster than poor lighting.
This isn’t to say that you have to have bright lights everywhere to make your colors vivid; you can do a lot with color even in low lighting provided that you know how to approach the topic. Stop to think about how you want to approach the lighting in your scene, considering temperature, hardness, intensity, and even position.
Another way to pull out the colors you want to capture in your photographs is to try to find larger surfaces of color instead of trying to capture fine details.
The more detail there is, the more shadow will be present and the more your color will be made up of a wide range of hues. Capture larger colored objects and you’ll have a more uniform color that will be more striking.
Some colors just don’t go very well together.
If you have a bad combination of colors, you’re not going to get great results when trying to bring some of them to the forefront. Put some time into planning out your photos, choosing colors that will complement each other and enhance how each color appears in the photograph.
There is a belief that in order to really master vibrant photography you have to capture colors that pop without any editing.
While a skillful photographer can often capture more “Wow!” in their photos than those with less expertise, don’t think that they aren’t going to make careful edits where needed. There’s nothing wrong with editing photos to bring out the colors you really want to highlight, especially if the pictures were taken in situations where the lighting wasn’t ideal or there was just no way to really capture the colors you wanted. Take the time to seek out photo editing tips to make sure that your edits don’t overwhelm the picture and you’ll be fine.
As you become more skilled in photography, you’ll find that all aspects of your work will gradually improve. This means that your photography mojo will improve overtime as you keep working on your other photography skills. Keep an eye out for photography tips to improve your shots and you might be surprised at how well your vibrant color photography starts looking in the future.