Color People
Or simply, people. As much as I was trying, during these sessions, to shoot not just IN color but FOR color, the pull of the subject was often stronger than that of the colors. One does not put aside an ingrained approach to subjects and composition that has for years deliberately ignored color as part of the visual language.
Arguably, some if not many of the images in this series, starting perhaps with the woman in the opening frame above, are not good enough from a color perspective, if by "color perspective" one means the predominance of color as a composition element if not as the central subject of the image per se.
I'm not saying here that color HAS to be the central subject. It can also be used a way to focus the attention on the central subject of an image, when the definition of "subject" is dictated by other factors. And it's definitely great when color becomes a (sometimes subtle) way to define the mood of an image or a series, almost cinematically (for this, see this blogpost by Patrick LaRoque in Montreal, Canada: his blog is a valuable learning tool for me).
On the other hand, a purely factual and/or documentary but non-assumed and random presence of color is, at least in my mind, less interesting — at best neutral and at worst a potential distraction from other elements of the image.
So, look at this gallery and ask yourself (and let me know, if you have a moment): which images "work" (alone or within the series) and why? One thing is sure on my end here: learning to shoot and edit for color after so much time spent on BW will be a long process...
