Pixiq

References to how colors can influence mood and ambience abound in popular literature. Such phrases as “he turned red with anger” or “a blue melancholy mood” make an obvious link between color and emotion. There also continues to be significant scientific and marketing research on this subject to guide color choices for a wide range of applications, including interior design, fashion, and product marketing, to name a few.

The low angle of light from a sunset streaking through the woods along with the use of a soft focus filter combine to give this scene a definite sense of warmth (example a). A similar impression is dominant in the lake setting in example (b). In this case, I added warmth to the scene by applying a warm software filter at its maximum intensity.

A

B

C

C

Moving in the other direction, let’s contrast the warmth of the first two examples here with the gloomy mood of a gray, overcast day, or the icy blue of a snowy landscape. In example (c), the setting now conveys a cold ambience during the dawn light of a very cold and still winter’s morning. In example (d), the slight blue colorcast results from using a daylight white balance to record this cloudy scene. People’s reactions are so tied to warm and cool colors that you can be reasonably sure of evoking certain feelings with your image by implementing the use of a strong colorcast.

E

There are also times when a very slight shift in the color content of a light source can introduce a subtle shift in mood or ambience. It is for this reason that nature and portrait film photographers have long favored the use of weak warming filters such as the 81A or 81B. With digital cameras, these effects can be produced using the white balance feature or in the computer with image-processing software. There are also times when unusual environmental conditions will produce a strong color shift, as in the scene inside the red tent in example (e). In this case, the deep red color of the tent absorbed virtually all other colors, allowing only red to pass through, and thus demonstrating the process of subtractive filtration.