Shutter Sisters

Sunday School: Pick A Color

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It’s no secret that I love the color red.  When I first started dating my husband, his codename on my blog was RT for Red Ted.  Some of my favorite photos of my daughter are of her in a vintage red dress.  I often take photos of red objects.  When we painted our condo, I insisted on having one room that was a shade of red.

So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that when we ended up on Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park on a very grey and somewhat misty day in mid-September, I chose to grab Cadence’s ruby slippers that her dad had found a couple days prior at a thrift store in Portland.  I knew that the colors would be pretty muted on the beach, and I wanted to throw in just a little splash of a single color to add a bit of drama to the photos I wanted to take.  Of course I picked red–ruby slippers on Ruby Beach; how could I resist?  And as tiny as those little red shoes were on that magnificent stretch of black and grey stones and giant bone-like driftwood and marvelous sea stacks, I think that bit of color was just what my camera was looking for.

The next time you find yourself in a grey-tone world, find something in the environment (or put one there) that’s got an eye-catching color and work that into your photo somehow.  You can make it the focal point, or just a blurry bokeh of color in the background. Maybe you have a favorite brightly hued object that you can carry around with you, and whenever you feel like your surroundings are too dull to photograph, you can add your little bit of color and capture the contrast that creates. 

How about you?  Do you have a favorite color that often shows up in your photos?  Or do you have an image where a little bit of color goes a long way?  Please share your comments and links to images!

Comments

  2. What a great photo! and a great question! It’s odd – I have started participating in a blog activity called Pink Saturday, where people are supposed to post about pink things. Obviously, it’s a lot of women posting, and some of the postings are kind of…well…uninteresting. Am I being patronizing and condescending to say that? sorry.

    Anyway – even so, it has been a really fun creative exercise for me to think about what to write about that’s pink. So far I’ve posted about shrimp, burlesque queens, as well as interesting pink houses, statues, wine and motorcycles.

    I suppose if the color were something else it would also be interesting and a creative inspirational tool.

    So – i say right now that Pink is a very inspirational color for me – even though I’m typically not a PINK person.

    Next I’m going to post about mortadella. That’s pink,isn’t it?

  8. cool photo. so the color and contrast were not created in Photoshop? how did you do this in the camera?

  13. I was right near Ruby Beach in September… I spent the day at Rialto Beach, BEAUTIFUL area! I love the picture with the red shoes, they stand out perfectly against the gray.

  23. Hmmm… I think that I must admit that I have a popping-red thing too… Just look here:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/2832363428/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/2854150678/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/2853319947/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/2523546126/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/2523588044/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/2522740769/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/2904789187/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/2902832849/
    OK, maybe you should just type "red" and search within my photostream… Maybe I need rehab, it’s a vice!