Color as Subject

June 26, 2022

What constitutes subject matter or the ‘topic’ in a photograph? Our first instinct is to identify the recognizable objects present in the scene and treat them as shapes and volumes to compose an image around. What if we turn this on its head? Can we purely look at a scene from a graphical point of view and focus on the color representation of these objects?

A common way to make color the subject of an image is to look at color contrasts. A red lantern against a blue sky, or a wall painted green-and-pink. In this post, I am going on a different tack and illustrate color as a subject in monochrome. Monochrome just means ‘single color’, and does not need to be black and white (though that’s often what is assumed). Searching for and creating images that center around a specific color is a great creative exercise - one that I strongly encourage you to try!

Zion Colors — Zion National Park, Utah

There are so many grand landscape views to see and capture in Zion, but this smaller scene consisting of a few trees against a sandstone rock face immediately struck me as an excellent opportunity for a color study. Although the texture is vastly different, last year’s leaves that were still on the tree had a similar color and tonal depth as the dried grass below and the sandstone behind it.

Reed in the Wind — Marina Del Rey, California

Moving on to a more abstract representation of color, this field of reeds in Marina Del Rey, California was refreshingly green on a sunny day. The wind along with a slightly longer exposure time allowed the focus of the image to be on the various shades of green rather than the individual shapes of the reed stems.

Water in Glass II

An even more abstracted view of color was found in this glass that I filled with water. I used a macro filter on my lens to be able to get really close and exclude the surroundings of the glass from the image. Playing with the natural light that hit the glass and water, I was able to pull out the blue tint and make that the key compositional element of this image.

The next time you go out (or stay in!) for a photo session, I challenge you to make a single color the subject of your image. Play around with the amount of abstraction you create. At which point does the object you photograph take a back seat to its color?