With these thoughts in mind, you can begin to consider appropriate color as an emotional boost for your photographs. You can heighten mood in the desired direction through clever use of color and its available controls. First, the objects that you photograph have colors—warm or cool, intense or subdued, monochrome or varied—that should be compatible with the mood you wish to convey. In addition, the light under which you are shooting has inherent color. Depending on whether you’re shooting digitally or with film, this can make quite a difference.
If the earth were to split open, this might be what you would see at its center. That’s what I thought on a backpacking trip through Buckskin Gulch when I encountered this scene. The glowing reds give the impression of intense heat. It was stupendous, almost frightening, but magnetically attractive at the same time.
Figure 6-9. View from the Center of the Earth, Buckskin Gulch
If you’re using traditional approaches, you’ll find that the film’s response to the color of ambient light can dramatically alter the overall color and mood. Your choice of film can prove to be an asset or a detriment to your goals. Every color film has a characteristic color balance. Some are stronger in the warm colors but weaker in the cool colors (i.e., the warm colors are pure and rich; the cool colors are somewhat grayed and dull). Others are stronger in the cool colors. Finally, color balance with film can be altered with filters (see more about this in Chapter 7).
Digitally, you can set the white balance on your camera to compensate for most ambient lighting conditions, but there still may be situations that require post-processing adjustments. You can go from RAW or JPEG files directly to the computer using the powerful tools of Photoshop or other such image editing applications. It’s easy to alter whatever hues and balances you’ve captured to correspond more closely to the feeling you want to convey. But I advise using such adjustments sparingly and with great subtlety. Too often the temptation is to saturate colors to neon levels or overbalance them toward the warm or cool tones, and then the look becomes exaggerated and contrived. When technique overpowers the image, all is lost.
Every film has its own unique palette—i.e., a combination of color balance and inherent contrast—which will be discussed fully in the next section. Similarly, every digital sensor has its own response to light and color. I strongly urge you to compare several color films or sensors in an unbiased manner before settling on one as your sole medium. Since color is highly subjective, it’s best not to rely on the recommendations of others; instead, determine for yourself what is most appropriate for your needs.
When you’re using color negative materials, the negative is never the final product but rather the halfway point between the exposure and the print. Color balance can be altered and improved during printing. Transparencies can be the final product, and they can also be made into prints, either by direct positive printing or via an internegative onto negative print material. Digitally, you can go from the RAW or JPEG files directly to the computer using the powerful tools of Lightroom, Photoshop, or other such applications. With film, color correction can be done at the printing stage in the same way as with negatives, in which case initial color balance is of lesser concern. However, the closer you come to the balance you want in the original material, the better chance you have of obtaining your desired balance in the final print.
Color Contrast and Tone
Along with color balance, another feature of color film must be considered in order to fully evaluate the film’s characteristics: its contrast. To do this properly, first distinguish between color contrast and tonal contrast. The two may be related or not, depending on the situation. For example, leaf green and fire engine red possess high color contrast (they are on opposite sides of the color sphere) but low tonal contrast because both translate to medium gray. On the other hand, light blue and deep red have high color contrast as well as high tonal contrast, since the deep red translates to dark gray while the light blue translates to light gray. Light blue and dark blue have no real color contrast but only tonal contrast, and for this reason they stand apart.
High color contrast occurs when color opposites are placed against one another; low contrast occurs when related colors are juxtaposed. Pastels within a family possess the lowest color contrast of all, while deep-toned opposites have high contrast. Yellow placed against orange, brown (which is basically dark orange), or light green is seen as low contrast, but against blue it exhibits higher contrast. Taxicab yellow placed against royal blue or deep purple will pop your eyes out with contrast.
Needless to say, each level of contrast possesses a different degree of emotional impact. High contrast has snap and pizzazz; low contrast has subtlety. Just as the eye jumps to light and contrast in a black-and-white photograph, it jumps to high color contrast in a color photograph. Just as tonal contrast can control the mood of a black-and-white print, color contrast can control the mood of a color photograph.
Color negative film is lower in tonal contrast than transparency film, with very few exceptions, and can be expected to yield lower contrast prints than ones derived from transparencies. Differences in color contrast levels can create greater emotional swings than you might expect without seeing comparisons. Digitally, all image capture is in color, and you can extend the range of the sensors with multiple exposures to go further into highlights and deeper into shadows. Then you can later merge the multiple exposures to form the final image (learn more about this in Chapter 11). To my eye, there can be an unnatural, neon look to digital imagery, unless it is handled with extreme care. Today, subtlety seems to be missing far too often.
I feel that it is wise to test several films to see the differences in color balance, degree of color saturation, and contrast level. First, shoot the same subjects under the same conditions with each film to make direct comparisons of their characteristics. Then do it with different types of subject matter under different lighting conditions (such as strong sunlight and shadow, soft overcast, controlled indoor lighting, etc.) to see if some films might be preferable under specific conditions. You will not only gain a better understanding of your materials, but also a greater insight into your interpretive goals.
Neither the degree of color saturation nor the inherent contrast of color film can be significantly altered in development (as contrast can be altered in black-and-white) unless you develop your own negatives or transparencies and learn some highly sophisticated means of contrast control. Most photographers use commercial labs for processing, and contrast control methods are not available at most labs. Thus, the only way to alter color saturation or contrast is by changing from one film to another. Color balance, on the other hand, can be altered by filters. Therefore in choosing a film—or several films—for your purposes, it would be wise to place greater emphasis on saturation and contrast than on color balance; while you can’t control the first two, you can control the latter.