Colors in Autumn Photography

Photo by Christopher O’Donnell

There is no doubt that the golden and red leaves on a background of lush green grass and beautiful blue skies are wonderful things. So how do you capture it? Darren from digital photography school offers us a few starting points to boost the colors in your autumn photography.

Use a Polarizing Filter

The saturation of colors that you get with one of these is fantastic. It is particularly useful in getting lovely blue skies but you’ll find that it decreases some of the haze that you often get at this time of year also.

Shoot in the Golden hours

While you can get great results at any time of the day – shoot autumn colors at the end of the day just before sunset when the light is golden. This accentuates the reds and golds even more than normal.

Photo by Christopher O’Donnell

Don’t ignore the Overcast days

Some people keep their cameras in their bags on days where the sun isn’t shining – but they can actually be the best days, for they help create a mood that you can’t get on a sunny day.

Look for contrasts

One way to accentuate the colors in your shots is to think about framing your shots in such a way that the different colors contrast with one another.

Photo by Zitona

Avoid shooting into the Sun

Shooting into the sun will result in shadows, lower saturation of colors and lens flare (which further reduces the impact of colors. If you do have to shoot into the sun use a lens hood or shield your lens with something to avoid lens flare.

Play with White Balance

Sometimes Auto mode with White Balance won’t give you the most vibrant results. Warm up your colors by increasing the color temperature a touch (not too much).

Underexpose your shots

Pull back the exposure on your shots a touch and you’ll find that it gives your colors a slightly deeper saturation.

How to Use Color Effectively to Enhance Your Digital Photography

Pink Sherbet Photography

When I feel blue, I always want to look for some colorful things to brighten my mood. And if I photograph it into photos, I can share it with my friends. Therefore, let’s learn from Amy Renfrey’ advices, who is the author of the Digital Photography Success ebook.

The first thing I recommend to start with if you are a serious digital photography enthusiast is to understand how color works. When you understand how color works in digital photography you can then use different colors to create very different feelings and emotions in the photo itself.

Colors such as blues, greens, mauves, etc are introverted colors and can often give your photo different feel to reds and yellows. For example think of a field of green with a tree that has purple flowers. It tends to represent, and even induce, feelings of tranquility and calm. These, in digital photography, are regarded as introverted colors.

Color such as yellows, red, oranges and pinks can often instill an energetic feeling. If you want to create a sense of stillness and calm in your digital photography then aim for subjects that have cold colors. And the same goes the other way too. If you want to have a bright energetic feeling, then go for colors that are warm

Pink Sherbet Photography

Contrasting colors in digital photography work very well too. Primary colors together such as blue and yellow seem to look great side by side, or one as a back ground and the other as a main subject. When doing digital photography, think about the colors you are creating in your photo. Try to aim for digital photos that have colors that look good together, and do not clash like hot pink and bright red next to each other for example. If you want extrovert bold color in your digital photo, don’t overcrowd the viewer with too many bold colors. In digital photography it works best if you have the main subject having the bold color, rather than multiple points of bold color in the background for example.

Choosing good digital photography subjects with simple composition makes colors work well to compliment each other. And remember digital photography is all about creating a feeling. And working your colors together well will enhance your digital photography images tenfold.