Importance of Color Combinations

 

This is a photo I took right after I received my Nikon D800.  I wanted to see how much detail that I could get from my new camera.  And, as I found out, more than enough!

The details in the flower are great, but to me, what makes this shot is the color combination of deep green background (which fades nicely into the background) versus the strong, vibrant purple and magenta of the flower (which brings the flower to the front of the image).

Color combinations are very important and I think that many of us photographers do not pay enough attention to it; and then, we are surprised when we see how well good color combination work.  So, what’s the moral to this story:  pay attention to different colors you have within your frame and try to work with color combinations that go together—usually, colors on opposite sides of the color wheel help bring-out each other.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 100, f/11 at 1/20^th of a second on a tripod with Elinchrom Quadra flash with large softbox to left of camera.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Landscape preset during import, set white and black points, added vibrance, adjusted hue of greens and increased the saturation of purple and magenta and added clarity and vibrance to flower with adjustment brush.