Swimming Pool, St. Francis, Eastern Cape

When is a colour photograph?

Colour photography is one of those things I imagine most of us take for granted. We assume, because we see the world in colour (or believe we do), that everybody else does, and that colour is a given. Because we see something in colour, we assume everybody else does and that therefore they see the world in the same way that we do.

I would venture to suggest that the reality is quite something else.

Over the years, as I have taught people photography, I have come to realise that some people have a natural affinity for colour, or for the colour in their photographs. I have also noticed that others appear to have no sense of colour and inevitably, when I play with their photographs and convert them to black and white, they turn out to be infinitely better when rendered as tones.

Some people quite naturally see in black and white.

I have a theory about this, one which could be a fascinating topic for my Ph.D. in psychology, should I ever get around to doing one. Do people dream in their favourite colour space? Do some people naturally dream in black and white, while others dream in colour? And does that affect people’s response to the scene and the way in which they photograph? As I said, I am waiting for the opportunity to spend three years at university, studying that very thing, so when I am at some cocktail party and they ask me what I do, and what I did my doctorate in, I will be able to reply: my doctorate is in the psychology of dreaming and colour and the way in which people’s response to that affects their photographic practice. I can well imagine the silence that will ensue. Perhaps an embarrassed cough, followed by the comment: lovely weather we’re having, and so much of it!

Colour has fascinated me for around 15 years now. After spending almost the same period of time working in black and white, I decided, around 1994, that I needed to establish a dialogue with colour. No, not colour photography, or coloured photography, but colour per se. You see, so many of us who choose to photograph in colour are making not colour photographs, but coloured photographs. The difference is both significant and important. Let me explain.

A colour photograph is one in which colour is a key compositional element. The colours present in the photograph are significant in and of themselves. Thus, to use green is to make a choice based upon a personal response to green at an intellectual, psychological and emotional level. Using green in the photograph, when you work in this way, is a decision based upon an emotional and intellectual understanding of the properties of the colour green. As a colour photographer, you have an understanding of the colour which goes way beyond the fact that green works well within the context of this photograph.  A coloured photographer will use it to fill in a certain area of the photograph. Similarly, using blue or red or rose madder is a choice based upon an understanding of that particular hue, one which goes beyond recording the fact that it was there at the moment when you made the  photograph. You see, colour is far more than a decorative element.

So, when we choose to use colour in our photographs, and choose we do, then our communication is working on another level besides the fact that we stood there, and we photographed that. To use colour is to make statements on a series of levels which go above and beyond the representational. Colour, as we all know, has an emotional and psychological impact. Most of us know, either consciously or subconsciously, that the people whose products we buy choose the colours of their brands with much deliberation and for specific purposes. We know, deep down inside, that the colours of our favourite brands are designed to have a deliberate effect upon us. We may not have ever been taught that, but subconsciously we are aware of it. And, of course we are influenced by it.

When I begin to do my research into colour, I found to my amazement a  number of highly significant and relevant things, which began to affect my perception of the colours and the brands I tend to purchase. I learned, for example, that McDonald’s ( I won’t buy it any more) chose the red and yellow of their brand for a very specific reason. I had often wondered why, when I went in to buy a simple cheeseburger, I almost inevitably ended up buying more than I intended, and spending the next hour or day wishing I had purchased and eaten quite so much. It was only when I realised that those specific yellows and reds, and the combination of them excited the appetite that I was able to see what was going on. I walked in the door, fully expecting to be satisfied by a cheeseburger, and found myself ordering a big Mac combo upsized , then spending the next few hours/days  feeling sorry for myself. Was I being greedy? No, of course not. The colours of the display panels above the ordering counter were cunningly structured to generate hunger/appetite within me. I was a pawn in a bigger game. When I discovered that, I stopped ordering what my stomach told me to and stayed with my original intention. It not only protected my waistline, it saved me money.

Colour is, of course, far more than a pigment in a paintbox, designed to make my picture look happy. Colour has power. Colour contains emotion. Colour has impact. If I ignore the entire back story behind colour, then the communication I am attempting to make will be either false or fraught. The message I am sending is as confused as my own understanding of colour. If I have no understanding whatsoever, either because I am ignorant, or because I am colour-blind (in every sense of the word), then I cannot expect the people viewing my photograph to share in my own perception.

Let me put it another way. I may well say: I know nothing about colour, but I know what I like. Put quite bluntly, that is a copout. Ignorance is no defence. Sentimentality is no defence either. A weak, ill-conceived awareness of colour says precisely that: my understanding of colour is limited and/or  non-existent. Whenever I use colour and in an uinformed way, that is precisely the message I am sending.

I do not know either what I’m saying, or what I am talking about.

As a consequence, if I choose to photograph in colour, and I expect my audience to respond to it in an approving and understanding/appropriate way, then it behoves me to make some effort to understand what I am talking about. It means that I owe it to myself to put some time and effort into doing  some research into colour, into its history, technology and the effect it has upon people. After all, interior designers are expected to do that. What makes photographers different and exempt?

At whatever level we choose to engage, whether it be an intrinsic and exhaustive study of the esoteric aspects of colour, or simply an understanding of the properties of colour as a specific section of the visible spectrum, I believe it is important that we at least do something. Simply put, the colours we use in our photographs have a powerful effect upon any viewer. Given that we profess, as photographers, to be involved in visual communication, then the least we can do is learn to speak the language and have some idea of what we’re on about.

If we take the time to get a better understanding of colour, of its formal, emotional and spiritual qualities, then when we make photographs, those we make will be colour photographs rather than coloured photographs. Tthe former implies knowledge and understanding: the latter implies that we are painting by numbers, simply filling in the gaps to satisfy an ill-thought-out misconception rather than an understanding of the formal properties of an image and colour’s place within it.

I know that I have used this photograph before in  a previous post, but I have a need to return to it, for two reasons. The first (and most important), is the need to come to terms with it on my own account. The second reason, which has taken me a couple of months to find and understand, is why I responded to it so strongly, and what the picture is really all about.

Each morning, while I was at the health clinic near Port Alfred, my program required me to turn up and participate in a session of aquarobics. Now,  I have always regarded aquarobics  as being something vaguely comical, so I wasn’t necessarily committed to it. However, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, and that the gentle exercise I received certainly made me feel better. The swimming pool, in which we exercised, was a lovely open area with a real sense of space and freedom about it. Each day, those of us who were committed to it would turn up and spend approximately 45 minutes  indulging (and I use the word deliberately) in a session of gentle but significant exercise. Over the space of that week I really came to enjoy it, and the sensation of being both present to what was happening but separated from it became an important part of my day.

On the last morning, as I awoke and realised I would begin my day with it, I knew  that I truly wanted to photograph, in some way, a memory of that special time. So I took my camera with me and left it on one of the deckchairs line beside the pool. Afterwards, when the others had left, I was left within the bright airy space, just me and my camera.

Now, my fascination with swimming pools, for whatever reason, has not diminished across the years. I took up swimming some eight years ago so that I could get my open water diving ticket. In order to do that, I had  first of all to defeat a boyhood terror of water, brought about by being swept away in a river at the age of nine. Swimming pools were places of horror and potential demise for me. Fortunately I had the help of the same wonderful coach who taught my children to swim, Ruth Jowsey, a Canterbury swimming legend who had taught countless thousands of young Cantabrians to swim. Over the next 18 months Ruth took me from being unable to keep my head under water for any more than about 10 m to being able to swim three to 4 km in a session. I learned to look forward to turning up at the swimming pool early in the morning, and enjoying the teal green meditation I would take part in for the next two hours. Later, as a result of her gentle encouragement, I trained for and passed my open water diving ticket. I had gone from a state of being terrified by water to one where I felt utterly at home in it. I still do. Not only that, I came to see the colour of the water as a metaphor for the psychological healing I had undergone.

It has been nearly 2 months since I made that photograph in the Eastern Cape. The picture has particular resonance for me, not just because of the light shining into the water, but because of the colour. Colour has all sorts of associations. In Eastern mysticism, Green is the colour associated with the heart chakra, and signifies healing. Green, more importantly, that translucent luminous green, as the colour of healing. The teal green of this photograph sits somewhere between the fourth chakra (heart; healing) and the fifth chakra (throat, communication). That is one interpretation of it. Of course there are others. Colour, being wavelength and energy, affects us more than we realise. When we begin to understand the psychological and spiritual power of colour, then the phrase: what is your favourite colour?  has infinitely more significance then we may at first be aware.

As photographers, when we work in colour, we have set sail upon an ocean which is truly vast. In order to navigate it safely and in an informed way, we need to have a map, and some knowledge of navigation. This means putting time and effort into learning how to read the map and, having read it, what decisions to make. It means going to the School for Navigators.

Otherwise we are going to do little more than make coloured photographs, when what we really want to do is to make colour photographs.