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Developing Color by Chuck Place In addition to making sure you have the right light for your shots, you should also make sure you have a colorful subject to really make your photos pop! Article rating: 9.10

A student recently asked me how I consistently produce images with so much color. I have been working as a professional photographer for over twenty-five years and do many things automatically. I had to think about the question for a few minutes before I could explain it properly.

The short answer, of course, is that I look for color everywhere I travel. For me, color is an integral part of the travel experience. A vendor’s stall of colorful fruit in a Mexican mercado or the rainbow hues of Native American regalia at a powwow draw me like a magnet. A Cinco de Mayo celebration in New Mexico is a blur of women’s brightly colored skirts. Throw in an occasional sunset and you have the photographer’s “easy” color. How do you produce colorful work the other ninety-five percent of the time? Well, you have to work at it.

Most travel photographers look for the right light, rather than just colorful subjects. Color tends to be emphasized in certain situations and we capitalize on that. The first and last hour of the day is definitely the most popular time to shoot for many professionals, from nature and travel shooters to architectural photographers. That warm light steaming through your image sets a mood that is hard to beat.

I was standing there, panting, at the top of a bell tower in Sienna, Italy.  I had dragged my gear up what seemed like, at least, a thousand stairs, but I knew the image I was about to make would be worth the effort. The sun was on the verge of setting and delicate pink light was sweeping across the ochre-colored town below me, long shadows giving the buildings volume. I merely had to crop tightly with my 80-200 mm zoom lens to capture the intricate mosaic of a beautifully lit Italian hill town.

This opportunity was not an accident or plain old good luck. I had planned this image before I had even left home. I try to plan my shooting schedule so that, for each location, I have at least one main subject to cover each sunrise and sunset. My research even tells me what direction each main building faces, so I know what time of day will give me the best results.

Some subjects, however, require a looser approach. I was in the midst of an assignment for Islands Magazine, strolling down Waikiki Beach at sunset, looking for interesting people shots. I quickly came upon a man with a parrot on each shoulder. This was perfect--people, parrots and palms! His job, it turned out, involved placing these two beautiful birds on the shoulders of tourists and photographing them with their own cameras. He then charged each tourist a “parrot rental fee”.

After explaining what I was doing, I moved him in front of some coconut palms and let the setting sun wash the man and his birds with a warm yellow light. He gave me the traditional Hawaiian wave and I was done. Some times a colorful image is that simple, but it takes the right light for the image to work. I rarely shoot the actual sunset any more, preferring instead to photograph subjects lit with early or late light.

Sunset is not the end of the day when it comes to creating great color, however. Dusk is one of my favorite times to shoot buildings lit with artificial light. As with sunrise and sunset, I always make sure I have something lined up for this brief thirty-minute window at the end of the day.

Although this is the preferred time to shoot cities, individual buildings can be very dramatic at dusk as well. After wandering all day through the streets of San Miguel de Allende, in central Mexico, I found myself sitting in front of the Parroquia. I had planned to end my day here in the central plaza photographing this exotic church at sunset. With its profusion of Gothic spires, this is the most famous church in the area. Sunset had tinted the structure shades of orange and gold and I had immortalized it from every angle imaginable. It had been a long, hot day, so I settled into the plaza with a cold soda, waiting to see what dusk would bring.

As the evening sky darkened, hidden lights came on all over the building, turning the church into a fanciful fairytale castle. This was developing into a great shot. Metering with my in-camera meter, I waited until the sky registered one or two stops darker than the lit parts of the building before properly exposing for the building. This combination gave me a brightly lit, golden church against a dark blue sky.  The contrast of warmly lit buildings and cool blue sky is always a dramatic combination. No black night skies for me.

During the middle of the day, none of these subjects are inherently colorful. OK, maybe the parrots are. Almost anything, however, can be colorful in the right light. Great color is often a result of merely shooting during the proper time of day. Get up early and stay up late. It’s a simple formula.

Next month I will discuss how to coax strong color out of your subjects when you can’t pick the time of day. Hold on to your polarizers!

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great article i want to become a photographer any tip on a good camera Posted by: Renford Elliott Mar 6, 2007 @ 7:9 PM EST

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