All colours are the friends of their neighbours and the lovers of their opposites
Marc Chagall
First, a disclaimer: in calling this gallery ‘colours that complement’ I don’t mean that they’ll be telling you how great your latest blog post was or how good you look today!
No, today we are looking at colour theory at the suggestion of Egídio, for the Lens Artists challenge. I’ve done lots of colour posts in the past but most of them focus on a single colour. Occasionally I’ve combined them, for example looking at the three primary colours: red, yellow and blue. But this focus on complementary colours is a new one for me.
I felt I knew a bit about them, but wanted to look into the subject a little more for this challenge. I found an interesting page on Canva that talked about the differences between the RGB colour wheel (used in photography, on computers, on TV etc.) and the RYB colour wheel used by artists and painters. For this post I’ll be working with the RGB wheel. In that one the primary colours are not red, yellow and blue but red, green and blue. It’s all to do with the fact that mixing coloured light is different from mixing coloured paints!
But what is a colour wheel? Canva told me that it was invented in 1666 by Isaac Newton, who mapped the colour spectrum onto a circle to demonstrate the relationship between colours. It forms the basis of colour theory, a practical combination of art and science used to determine which colours look good together.
We can use a colour wheel to choose colours that are complementary (sitting opposite each other on the wheel), analogous (sitting next to each other) or monochromatic (shades of the same colour). As photographers colour theory helps us to understand the impact different colour combinations will have.
Complementary colours
For this challenge I decided to work with the three primary colours of the RGB wheel and their complementary ones. That is:
- Blue & yellow
- Green & purple
- Red & turquoise
Note that those pairings differ a little from those mentioned by Egídio, just as the Canva wheel I used differs a little from the AI-generated one he worked with. It doesn’t matter, the principle remains true. And in any case I’ve taken a few liberties with my choices; a close study of the wheel will tell you my colours aren’t always directly opposite each other! But I hope they’re close enough to prove the point about impact.
My feature photo is of street art in Valparaiso, Chile, which I think includes all the colours I’m using in my galleries.
If you want to know where these photos were taken, just click on an image for the caption. You can then scroll through a slideshow to see all the other photos in that gallery with their captions. If viewing on a phone you’ll need to click the ‘i’ in a circle (bottom right) to get that info, but you’ll only need to do so once for each gallery!
Blue and yellow
Green and purple
Red and turquoise
16 Comments
JohnRH
Great complements. My compliments.
norasphotos4u
Beautiful combinations!
thehungrytravellers.blog
Great pics of great colour variations. Whoever it was who said “blue and green should never be seen” has never stood on a Cornish clifftop looking across the Atlantic!
the eternal traveller
What a beautiful selection of photos. And isn’t the street art in Valparaiso incredible.
Tina Schell
Very interesting Sarah – quite a different set of combinations! Of course your images are wonderful as always but I especially like the blue and yellow set. It’s gorgeous!
Rupali
Beautiful gallery.
margaret21
A thoughtful – and cheerful – piece.
restlessjo
Superb galleries, Sarah. I’m always attracted to the blue and gold, synonymous with Portugal for me, but I love your choices in the other two.
Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter
Lovely cheering post for this dull miserable weather! Yellow and blue appeal most, but I do like the red flowers against turquoise walls too.
Egídio
Sarah, you have presented remarkable images in this post. I especially liked that you grouped your beautiful photos in a set. That made the complementary colors pop out even stronger. Terrific post. I’m so glad you liked the challenge and gave us this special treat with your gorgeous photos. Thanks.
Terri Webster Schrandt
Wow, your images demonstrating the use of complementary colors are perfect for the challenge this week! I learned about the color wheel in college art classes. I believe many of us photographers are drawn to the energy of complementary colors. The yellows against the blue are especially stunning.
Easymalc
This is a challenging challenge Sarah and one that you’ve done well in finding images to illustrate the topic. Well done!
Incidentally, my printing background involved working with the two different colour wheels – in the darkroom separating photographs into cmyk, preparing the colour separations for printing, and then printing the end result . Conde Nast were notoriously difficult customers because they always wanted specific colours on their front cover that didn’t follow the usual cmyk practice, and not always easy to match. Technology has made things easier in that respect.
Sue
Nicely all – encompassing !
Heyjude
Colour theory is fascinating. And wouldn’t life be boring without colour. I like the blue and yellow set best, probably because they are the colours of summer – the sun and a blue sky.
Anne Sandler
Fantastic, Sarah! RYB is a new one for me, especially since I don’t paint. I’m more familiar with CYMK that is used when printing. I loved all your selections.
satyam rastogi
All colours are the friends of their neighbours and the lovers of their opposites(wonderful line🌅