The Elders
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
2009
This is actually a rework of a photograph that is part of my Opus Corvus exhibit collection. In that collection I call the original straight black and white version of this photo Steam Bath because the two ravens are bathed in the steam from a hot pot at Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone. I’m not sure what the green and brown background of this version is supposed to represent, I just liked it. But I didn’t like the connotations of thinking of green and brown steam.
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Larry, It’s interesting to me the potential that “white sky” images have for applying custom color and texture as you’ve done here. Color carries a lot of emotional content (even if we can’t articulate it). Here it creates more depth and mystery, moving the photo away from the graphic quality of the b&w (for me). Nicely done!
Thanks Kathy. I like that you mentioned the articulation issue when you talked about effects (color in this case) carrying “emotional content”). That you brought up the articulation issue suggests that it’s not just me that has that problem! However, I feel that being able to articulate what the emotional content is would help move such techniques away from being simply gimmicky, which is always an issue as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks for the quick synopsis–it’s probably as close to a formal study of the subject I’m going to get. Every time I think I ought to spend some time looking into such topics, I seem to find 100 other things to do instead. Perhaps I am schooled out and destined to shoot from the hip for the most part. (Not necessarily a bad thing.) I will remember to be careful if I start marketing my work overseas (might be safer to stay with the black and white so as to avoid misinterpretation).
For a brief moment I thought it would be the Kansas CIty Irish band, The Elders!!
Mikey, maybe with that name I should have hung a bodhrán or uilleann from their beaks.
One place to start with “articulating” the emotional content of color is to look at the way it has been used in graphic design, interior design, etc. I know there are lots of websites with summaries of this info.
Another tactic (from Betty Edwards’ book called Color) is to list several emotions/feelings and then create colors (with Photoshop, though Betty has people use paint) that to *you* represent those feelings. This makes the color content more personal but not necessarily “universal”.
Color connotations are culture specific; for example, white in western culture equals purity, innocence, cleanliness, etc. In some eastern cultures, white is the color of death. So something more for you to research “in your spare time”! 🙂