Project 2: Color and Grids

In this project, our goal was to explore how different colors in photographs set the mood of the photo. We also learned how to use Lightroom to create unique grids with specific color schemes like warm colors, cool colors, monochrome colors, and complementary colors. We also had to take one picture where the color was the main characteristic that set the mood. Here are my four grids and one mood photo:

Warm Color Grid: 

This is my warm color grid. I took a picture of a lamp in my house with a kind of paper/soft lampshade which I thought made the whole photo very bright and luminescent. All the images that make up this grid are the same; I just edited each one separately and put them in a unique grid template to make it a coherent whole. After I put them in the template, I still edited it further altogether. I wanted to really highlight the warm colors in it so I increased the brightness and increased the yellow and orange hues.

Cool Color Grid: 

This is my cool color grid. I thought this was the best cool color representation because the main colors in it are cool colors, such as blues, greens, aquas, etc. I also thought that this grid was unique from my other grids because this template was more linear versus the others which were more scattered. To edit this grid, I sharpened the image because the resolution was low and I highlighted the greens and blues. 

Monochrome Color Grid: 

This is my monochrome color grid. I think it best represents monochrome colors because there is only one dominating color in it, which is purple, but there are different shades and hues of purple that make it up. This picture was actually the ceiling at Director Park, I just rotated and cropped the same image to make them all unique. When I put it in the template, I really like how the diagonal beams formed a disorder in the grid but somehow it all came together. I then edited the photo with a preset which turned it purple because it reacted with the blueness of the original photo.  

Complementary Color Grid: 

This is my complementary color grid. I think it best represents complementary colors out of all my other grids because the red and green on the leaves are contrasting with each other since they are opposite each other on the color wheel. I edited this grid to accentuate the red and the greens. I made them stand out by increasing the color saturation for both colors and increasing the overall brightness of the photo. 

Extra Grids:

This is my extra grid that I decided to add to this project. They were actually brick stairs that I cropped to give it a cool optical illusion. I then played around with the colors a lot and gave it a bright salmon pink color. 

This grid is made of one bamboo that I just rotated. I really like how the bamboo stalks form a never ending rectangle to the middle of the picture. When I edited it, I wanted the viewers' eyes to fall straight on the lines that the bamboo stalks made, so I increased the darkness and shadows behind the stalks to make them stand out. 

Mood Photo: 

This is my mood photo. I muted the colors to have a mood of isolation. When I first shot this image, the horse was the only subject in this photograph. I then decided that this would be an ideal mood image of solitude because of the single horse in the vastness of the landscape. To edit the colors, I desaturated everything, including the greens of the trees and grass and the darkness of the bark in the foreground. I also increased the shadows, especially in the sky, to give it a grayer, darker feel. I believe that the way I edited this photo and the colors in it best represents desolation because of the non vibrancy and lifelessness of it.