From color to composition, you can take fresh still life

On holidays, if you don’t want to hesitate in various scenic spots with the scorching sun and dense crowds, just want to be a beautiful man quietly, then taking still life at home is also a good choice! Today, this tutorial will teach you to complete a group of fresh life photography works from color to composition.

1、 Color composition

In recent months, more and more photographers like to share their color presets on Weibo, and I am one of them. However, some people also found out why the original author can get very good results by using the same preset, but the effect is not very good when using his own photos, even counterproductive.

In fact, a large part of the reason is that you do not control the color properly in your early shooting. So, what should a good life photography do in terms of color?

(1) Color selection

First of all, we need to understand the warm colors of red, orange and yellow, and the cool colors of green and blue.

This is the color ring diagram. As we all know, the colors we can see in our eyes are on this diagram.

A photo with fresh color should be bright and elegant in color, and it can give people a sense of healing after reading. So I often use blue, green and yellow as the main colors in my pictures. Avoid a lot of brown, purple and red, so as to make the picture soft.

Secondly, among the three kinds of fading, white is the most attractivelike a breath of fresh airOn the contrary, black will give people a sense of oppression.

Compare the two cats in the picture below, a black cat and a white cat:

After comparison, we found that even in the same environment and light, the white cat looks much fresher. To sum up, we should use blue, green, yellow and white when taking fresh and natural photos.

(2) Color matching

In addition to the color selection mentioned above, color matching is also very important for a photo. If you follow the above color selection method when shooting, then you have achieved a great deal. Next, we need to match the colors in blue, green, yellow and white.

Generally speaking, we need to select the adjacent colors in the color ring. For example, blue and blue-green are adjacent and can be matched together; Yellow and green are adjacent to each other and can be combined. Of course, this doesn’t work at all times. There can’t be so many coincidences in life.

A photo should not have too many colors, nor too few. It is best to limit it to three to five. Too many colors will be messy, and too few colors will be too monotonous.

If black, purple and red are unavoidable in the picture, we must try to reduce their proportion in the picture.

2、 Composition skills

（1）With regard to the composition of life photography, I have always adhered to the principle of “no composition”. By “no composition”, I mean not to completely ignore composition when taking photos, but not to be bound by a series of theories of composition. I often see some specially organized photos of various still life on the Internet. This kind of photos that blindly pursue theoretical composition, I can’t read the words “life” and “temperature”. The truer and more natural photos can move people’s hearts and cure others.

（2）Change your perspective and see the world from a different perspective. When shooting the same scene, the person who looks up at the camera may take a plain picture, but the person who looks up at the camera can attract people’s attention, which may be caused by the different angles of view.

Just imagine, in the same scene, what is the difference between the scene that ordinary people see, the scene that a cat sees, and the scene that a bee sees? Imagine again, whose perspective is more unique for humans? The answer is self-evident, so let’s change our perspective when shooting. Imagine yourself as a cat, a bee, and so on. Then your photos must be good.

（3）Pay attention to the details of life. The details of life are full of surprises. Pay more attention and observe more. Like a few leaves on the windshield wiper and a broken tennis net on the court, you can take pictures.

（4）The 6×6 picture scale is my favorite. The square picture itself is full of coordination and design sense, which can be added points in the effect of shooting.

The current SLR can’t preset the frame ratio in the early stage, so we need to cut it in the later stage, which requires us to determine the composition of the picture in advance. If one subject is too far to the left and the other is too far to the right, it is difficult to cut it.