Blue and Yellow

weekly exercises

2 June

Blue and yellow are a unique colour combination. It is probably one of my favourites.

It very unique because we virtually have a blue-yellow sensitive sensor in our eyes. This is so we can determine depth accurately. Surprisingly, our binocular vision doesn’t really contribute much to our perception of depth. We determine how far things are away from us by utilising the fact that ambient light on earth is blue. That sunlight is yellow. We use blue shadows and yellow highlights to determine depth.

Have you noticed how hard it is to determine depth under moonlight? It is because there is no yellow light and our rods are working overtime in monochrome.

Have you ever seen a blue-yellow? Or conversely, a yellow-blue. Van Gogh knew this when he painted a Starry Night. If you ever stand in front of it, you will instantly observe that it vibrates. It has its own motion. It throbs with the colours of blue and yellow working against each other.

Photographers for years have used selenium toning in the darks to add a blue tint to their photographs and a warm yellow tone to their highlights with a stain. This gives their photographs more depth. Using a blue-yellow split tone, yellow in the highlights and blue in the shadows adds more depth to monochrome images. Stunning.

For this exercise, explore blue and yellow in different combinations in your photographs. You can go the split tone monochrome way or hunt out yellow and blue subjects. Experimenting with how much of each colour. Do not include other colours. Just stick to blue and yellow.

Post at least three photographs with this colour combination. And discuss how the colours effect the photographs.