Lady in Red

Color Theory is one of the dark arts! They’re subject to the whim of current fashion, and today’s cool colors are tomorrow’s embarrassment. Just stroll around a mall from season to season and watch as the marketing color management machine dictates to us all, forcing us to replace perfectly good but suddenly outmoded interior decor and clothing with this year’s absolutely fabulous. Most of us are sheep and do just as we’re told. From pastel to camo to fluoro we’re led firmly by the nose!

But sometimes unfashionable, inaccurate or wildly clashing colors look good. For some reason they just seem to work.

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? No. Just as one can never learn how to paint.
Pablo Picasso

For photographers, color management and correction can be one of our most complex challenges. From the light sources at the time of capture through to the bewildering variety of post processing tools, difficult decisions and corrections have to be made. Certain color combinations are either right or wrong, and lots of color is too much. But, sitting quietly watching the waves, this Lady in Red and Gold broke the rules, and so have I.

Adobe has an excellent tool for browsing and selecting groups of colors that work well together. Called Kuler, its available on the Apple App Store and also on the web.

In Other News

After 10 years with his feet up David Bowie has been unusually busy recently and has just released an incredible new video for the track Love is Lost from the new extended edition of his latest album, called The Next Day Extra. The video is a remixed electro version of the song with some impressive and mesmerizing 3D graphics, and (with the caveat that it contains mildly adult scenes) you can see it here.

This follows his release a few days ago of another video for the original version of the song – its a creepy DIY home movie that apparently cost only $13 to produce!