Backlit intensity
Light up a colour to achieve a naturally increased saturation
Digital colour saturation raises issues that simply didn’t exist in the days of Kodachrome
Although the previous image of the bottles had a moderate colour palette with nothing extreme, it’s true that most colourists veer toward the strong and definite – and that brings with it the question of saturation.
Digital colour saturation raises issues that simply didn’t exist in the days of Kodachrome and other transparency films. Then you got what you were given, but now the saturation is partly handed over to processing. All Raw processing software gives you control over the amount, and if you want intensity, it’s tempting to raise the Saturation slider, even if only for one hue – unfortunately with all-too-predictable results for the photo.
The photographic value of intense colour is that it’s not so common in real life. Coming across it and capturing it successfully is the skill, rather than creating it or enhancing it later on the computer.
One special situation that creates an entirely natural strong saturation is spot backlighting (or back spotlighting, if you like). What sets it apart is a combination of circumstances: a coloured subject that has some degree of translucency, or even transparency; and backlighting from a hard source like the sun in a clear sky. The idea of lighting up a subject from behind is that it acquires some kind of glow, and this is a little special in the repertoire of lighting conditions. More to the point for colour, increasing its brightness and contrast raises its saturation, provided that you expose for it – meaning no hint of clipping, even though it’s bright.
Apart from facing into the sun, two conditions are needed to make this type of shot work. The background has to be dark in order to make the contrast, and the sun needs to be both out of frame and obscured by something. In the studio we’d call this being flagged off. Here the flag can be a building, a tree – anything tall enough, really. And as the sky around the sun is also bright, the whole effect is stronger when most of the sky in front of the camera is blocked. You can help this by using your hand, or someone else’s or a card, to shield the lens from any stray light.
Going one step further
In this case, on the island of La Réunion, an active volcano, there is actually a subject of interest, and it’s not the coloured cloth hanging from the washing line. A recent lava flow invaded this village, flowing close to some houses, and the contrast between lava and habitation makes a point.
As a colourist, however, I’m playing with the well-known idea of colour accent (or spot colour, as it’s also called), in which a relatively small area of strong colour becomes dominant by setting it against a neutral ground. Why the image works for me is that this colour scheme catches the attention first, allowing the lava to be recognized after a slight delay – not so obvious.