COLOR RELATIONSHIPS

5 ltimately, colors have to be treated in

relationship to each other—and they are
perceived differently according to the other
colors they are seen next to. Red next to blue
appears to have a different nature from red next
to green, and yellow against a black background
has a different intensity from yellow against
white. Digital photography now gives a huge
degree of control over the appearance of color
in a photograph, and the hue, saturation, and
brightness are all adjustable. To what extent and
in what direction these adjustments should be
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made is a relatively new issue for photography.
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Arguably the greatest problem with color THEHIGHERCOLORTEMPERATUREOFREFLECTEDSKY
in photography and in art is the notion of
rightness and wrongness. As we’ve just seen
(pages 114-115), colors evoke reactions in the
viewer that range from the physiological to the
emotional, yet few people are able to articulate
why they like or dislike certain colors and certain
combinations. Indeed, few people are interested
in analyzing their visual preferences, while at the
same time expressing definite reactions.
As early as the fourth century BC, the
Greeks saw a possible connection between the
scale of colors and the scale of music, and even
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applied color terminology to music by defining
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the chromatic scale, which was divided into ORANGEOFREFLECTEDLIGHTINTHISPOOL
semitones. This relationship has persisted,
and it was a short step from this to theories of
harmony. Harmony in both music and color
has had different meanings throughout history,
from the Greek sense of fitting together to the
more modern one of a pleasing assembly. Taste
and fashion enter this, with the result that there
have been many, and conflicting, theories about
how colors “ought” to be combined. This is a
huge subject, dealt with at some length in my
book Digital Photography Expert: Color, and in
the greatest detail of all in John Gage’s Color
and Culture, but here I’m concerned with the
need to take a balanced, non-dogmatic view.
On the one hand, there are ways of combining /2!.'% ",5% 0).+ '2%%. 2%$ '2%%.
colors that tend to be acceptable to most viewers, !CLASSICANDBYNOMEANSUNCOMMON 4HEPINKOFTHISMAN´SROBEISINALMOSTDIRECT 2EDFEATHERSCONTRASTWITHTHEGREENFOLIAGE
and it would be foolish to ignore them. On PHOTOGRAPHICCOLORCOMBINATION OPPOSITIONTOTHEHUEOFTHEGRASSBENEATH SEEMINGTOLIFTTHEBIRDSFROMTHEBACKGROUND

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