Improbable photographic colours

click photo to enlarge
Sometimes it's the depth of the blue in the sky, other times its the lurid green of the fresh grass, and frequently it's the improbable reds and oranges of the sunset (or sunrise). The other day, on a visit to the Yorkshire city of Hull (Kingston upon Hull to give it its full title) it was the blackness of the clouds. I'm referring, of course, to the way that reality sometimes looks unreal. In each of the instances cited above the observant viewer or photographer might well think that the saturation slider has been applied with a heavy hand, although there is a school of photography where this kind of embellishment has become pretty much the norm (see 500px.com).

We visited Hull on a day when heavy showers  and brighter spells alternated, and the clouds produced by this weather were striking. We were walking near the pier where the River Hull meets the River Humber, passing the end of Queen Street, when we both noticed the smoke-like clouds drifting past the tower of Holy Trinity church. My wife remarked that they wouldn't look real in a photograph and I know just what she means.We have reached a point in the development of digital photography when the manipulation of the relatively faithful images produced by cameras are routinely "enhanced", either straight away and automatically by software (e.g. Google's "auto awesome"), or later by the user's deliberate choice. I really wish it would stop. Our world is awesome enough without making it look otherworldly.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Queen Street and Holy Trinity, Hull
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 39mm (78mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.3
Shutter Speed: 1/2000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Otherworldly photographic colours

click photo to enlarge
I was looking at some competition-winning photographs online recently. Those judged the best were chosen by the popular vote of the particular online community. As I went from category to category - landscape, still-life, travel, etc - a recurring thought kept popping into my head: "Which planet were these shots taken on?" The reason for my query? The colours of many of those selected were so heavily saturated, so unnatural looking, so "otherworldly" that they were unbelievable as images of planet Earth.

This penchant for bright, deep, fantasy colours has, I think, grown with the rise of digital. Sometimes it's down to the preference of the photographer. On other occasions "vivid", "saturated" or some other synonym is the default setting of the camera, chosen by the manufacturers in preference to "natural" or "standard", because the they know these stronger colours will appeal to buyers. Deeper colours can also be a deliberate or perhaps even an unwitting manipulation of the saturation slider by the photographer who makes that choice because they feel that's how "good" photographs now look or how they must look in order to win photographic competitions. Then there's the influence of HDR, Instagram and all the other "effects" that are so easily applied digitally. Well, I wish it would stop. I wish that photographic colours would look more like they do in life.

However, there are three more reasons why saturated colours abound. Two causes are hard to deal with and the other should be left alone. The first is the inability of camera sensors to accurately record all colours in all situations. Colour film couldn't do it and neither can digital. If you want total accuracy you've sometimes got to adjust the hues the camera records to a closer approximation of what your eye saw. And that's not always easy. Then there's the fact that monitors are frequently not colour calibrated. Consequently there is often a mis-match between the way the colours of a particular photograph are seen on different computers and devices. Finally, there's the fact that sometimes, in some lights, the natural colours of the world are saturated in a way that makes them look unreal. A few weeks ago I pointed out a pasture to my wife that was so intensely green it looked like it had been spray painted. It probably had been sprayed, but with fertiliser and herbicides. Then, more recently we saw dozens of small clouds at sunset that were a vibrant salmon pink against a glowing cyan blue sky. On this occasion I actually said to my wife, "A photograph of this sky would look like it had been heavily manipulated in Photoshop." Where otherworldly, unusual colours occur naturally there's nothing that needs doing to change the photograph. Today's shot has something of these qualities because the colours look unreal or manipulated. I took it near the River Thames in London, and it's as it came out of the camera, the colours fairly close to what we saw in what was the second best London sunset I've ever seen. For the very best London sunset of the past few decades, one that was widely acknowledged as such, see my photograph here. Note - I did use a graduated neutral density filter for this shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: crop of 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Is the world becoming more colourful?

click photo to enlarge

The world was sepia in the nineteenth century, black and white up to about 1950, coloured (in a contrasty sort of way) for the next fifty years, and since about 2000 and the more general take-up of digital cameras, colourful in a more saturated way. At least that's what visitors from another planet could be forgiven for concluding if they were to view Earth solely through the medium of photography.

It's never been true to say that "the camera never lies". In fact, it's more accurate to say that it ALWAYS lies. As far as colour fidelity in photography goes the interesting question is whether the departure from the truth as our eyes see it is as a result of technological deficiencies or deliberate manipulation. It's generally correct to say that the periods of sepia and black and white photography were a consequence of, initially, the absence of a colour process, and thereafter, the cost of it for the average photographer: only when it had become affordable did colour become widespread. The colours produced by prints and slides of the second half of the twentieth century varied enormously. The make of film, the type of processing, the condition of the chemicals used in processing, and several other factors affected the final output. A lot of the prints were contrasty, with sometimes lurid colours, whilst others were (by the design of the film as well as the desire of the photographer) nearer to reality. But then (as now), the tonal range captured by the cameras and produced by the printing methods available, was not as wide as that seen by the average eye.

Today it is common to see "serious" photographers lamenting the over-saturated colours in photographs produced by amateurs and many enthusiasts and professionals. I've done it myself. However, this phenomenon pre-dates the digital revolution. A photograph that has brighter, deeper colours than nature provides catches our eye, has more impact. And yes, I've sometimes tweaked colours for that reason. Consequently magazines, television, film and web images have used this fact to attract readers and viewers. Today we seem to have reached the point where some people question, or are disappointed by, an image that shows anything approahing the true colours of grass, trees, sky, etc. Camera manufacturers have seized on this by offering "saturated" colour mode alongside "natural". Some go a step further and sell their models with the colour of the "natural" setting already boosted in order to make it appeal to the buyer, and have the "saturated" setting should that not prove sufficuently intense. Many cameras also have a "sunset" mode that increases the reds and oranges when you take your shot as the sun slips over the horizon!

But there is another important reason why colours are often "wrong", and that is the difficulty in matching the the hues and saturation of the elements that produce today's photographs - the camera sensor, camera LCD, computer screen and printed image. It is just about possible to achieve a match, but is extremely difficult. Sometimes what looks like a deliberate over-saturated print is simply the result of someone finally calling an end to their labours and saying, "That's as close as I can get it!"

Today's reflection was prompted by my Evening photography blog piece of the other day, and the subdued colours of the horse chestnut tree and Cambridge colleges in the photograph above. The colours of the tree and buildings are as close to reality as I can make them. However, I know that if I printed the shot the colours would be slightly different, and probably more saturated than I'm seeing on screen. Of course, what YOU are seeing on your screen will be slightly different again. But that's a subject for a different (and slightly shorter!) post.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On