Pat Kay攝影中的視覺模式系列【攝影藝術理論】 讓照片更亮眼——攝影中的各種對比技巧【Pat Kay攝影中的視覺模式系列5/10】【攝影藝術理論】

Hello, my lovely photogs, welcome back to another video. Welcome back to the series on visual patterns, the series where we break down visual language into visual patterns so that we can better understand the heuristics of photography and how best to apply them to our work. Now, again, if you don't know what any of those terms mean, make sure to check the very first video of the series where I break down visual language and visual patterns and everything you need to know about it so that you can get a better understanding of why you would potentially use this kind of system versus something like photography rules, for example. Now, in this video, we are going to be talking about contrast. Now, when I say the word contrast, you probably are thinking of, you know, the Lightroom slider, this one. And you'd probably be right. You know, for most intents and purposes, what we're talking about when we talk about contrast in photography is to do with that slider. But you'd also be selling yourself a little bit short if that's all you thought about. You see, in photography, there's actually a whole bunch of different types of contrast. And that's what I wanted to cover in this video today and introduce you to a couple of these concepts. So to start this video, I actually wanted to jump into the dictionary meaning of what the word contrast means. And this will make a lot more sense as we go on through the video. But the dictionary meaning is the state of being strikingly different from something else in juxtaposition or close association. Now, the strikingly different portion is the key phrase that I want to focus on, especially when it comes to photography, because we usually are talking about tonal contrast when we're talking about the strikingly different portion, the contrast of an image. And that is the brightest portions of the image versus the darkest portions of the image. As I alluded to earlier in this video, there are other different types of contrast that are super useful to us in our photography practice that I want to introduce you to as well. So let's dive into some of those. OK, and just to recap the basics, what I just mentioned, tonal contrast. Tonal contrast is the difference between the lightest portions of the image and the darkest portions of the image, usually done with a purpose, usually done with an intent. And we will get more into the purpose and the intent in the examples later on in the video. But for now, this is the basics of contrast. This is the basics of tonal contrast. Now, the next one is color contrast. And if you haven't checked out my last video on color theory, then I highly recommend that you do that before you watch the rest of this video, as it'll make a whole bunch more sense. But color contrast is exactly what it sounds like. It is using color to create difference, to create a contrast. Usually that's done through the complementary colors, so the colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel. Not always, but it is usually done in that way. And the third and final contrast that I want to introduce you guys to is conceptual contrast or juxtaposition. Now, this is more of a kind of grouping together of ideas when I talk about conceptual contrast, but it refers to ideas like hard versus soft, or nature versus urban, or old versus new. It's generally these elements within the image itself that are contrasting each other in a way that's a little bit unusual. Maybe it's a person standing left and another person standing right, and the two people contrast each other because of what they're wearing or something like that. There's a whole bunch of different styles of contrast that it could be. This conceptual contrast is kind of an umbrella for all of those. Of course, there are a great many different types of contrast out there in the world, and so I encourage you to go out there and look for them yourself and add them to your photography. As for now, we will go through a little bit of the why you would use them and how you would use them through the use of some examples. So in this example, we have an image from Mount Cook. We have all of these lovely mountains here and I want to talk about the reason why tonal contrast works. Tonal contrast works because the eyes are naturally drawn to the brightest portions of the image. Contrast in general, like you would use contrast so that you can direct attention as the photographer so that you can show the viewer exactly what is important to look at in the image. So in this example, what I wanted to show the viewer is this top portion of this mountain is the most important part. And so I, in Lightroom, made all of this valley intentionally dark and I brought down the shadows for that so that it makes the tips of this mountain stand out and the rest of the sky stand out so that it's automatically drawing your eye into that. In this example, I'm doing the same thing. I'm accentuating what already happened in the world which is this nice big ray of sunshine right here and I made this portion of the image a lot darker than what the human eye would see so that the actual image pops so that the portion of where you're supposed to look it gets accentuated and that is the purpose of tonal contrast and that's why it works so well. In this example, it's very obvious what is going on and where you should be looking at as the viewer and in this image, in Lightroom, I've actually darkened these outer portions so that this one sliver of light is the only thing that you see as the viewer that's very intentional and it makes images very easy to understand. It gives a cue to your viewers as to where they should be looking. In this image, I wanted to show you guys color contrast and the idea of color contrast What we've got here is two colors that aren't exactly opposing each other in the strictest of senses when it comes to complementary colors but they're close What we've got here is a cool top portion and a warm middle portion contrasting each other in a sort of 50-50 kind of relation and in my opinion, that makes the image quite balanced and quite easy to look at and easy to understand In addition, we've also got the silhouettes of the very dark city versus the very bright sky which has these two colors which gives the rest of the image balance In this image, what I'm using is an abundance of cool colors and just a very small flash of warm colors in addition to tonal contrast so a lot of shadows appear down here and then only a very sliver of light and again, this has the intention of drawing your eye into exactly where it needs to go Now, when it comes to conceptual contrast, what I wanted to show you guys is this image of nature versus urban What we have here is a very natural foreground of Asakura very gentle flowers and then we have this very hard man-made castle in the background which has a strong juxtaposition, right? You have this nature element and you have this man-made element that both go together Whatever meaning you want to associate with that is obviously up to you but this is a technique that you can definitely add to your practice in your photography In this image, we've got the whole man-made versus nature again in the form of this little house in the middle of nowhere We've also got this idea of soft and soft and then very hard lines in the middle as well So there are a whole bunch of different avenues you can use to instill conceptual contrast into your images And they all have a different kind of feeling and a different kind of mood In this instance, what I was trying to do with this image is actually make it quite minimal And so I was actually focused more on the contrast of big and small where you would have this kind of small little house in the middle of nowhere juxtaposed with this huge field and this huge sky and this kind of sense of, I guess, giant planet little person kind of vibe And that's what I was trying to go for But again, there is a lot of different conceptual contrasts that you can use All right, and in this final image we've got a little bit of everything that I mentioned in these last examples We've got tonal contrast So we've got a bunch of shadow here with this very bright sky behind it And they both juxtapose each other Then we've got color We've got very cool colors up the top juxtaposed against this very warm middle section And then to a lesser extent we've got nature and these birds adding, you know, very soft very round lines to the overall image juxtaposed with the very hard lines of the Eiffel Tower All right, just to wrap this up When you're creating contrast in your images you are creating difference And it is this difference that creates interest and drama and allows you as the photographer to direct your viewers' attention to the exact elements and the exact position that you want the viewer to look so that you can then tell the story that you want to tell All right, that's it for this particular episode of contrast in the Visual Patterns series I will see you in the next video but until then, get out there and make something that matters Peace