Story Behind the Image | Fall Leaves

Hey everyone. So this is the first post of our story behind the images. We want to share with you our adventure of shooting and creating. We'll go through our thought process and inspiration behind some of our favorite images. We'll also share with you the technical details we used and what we had to go through to capture them. Thanks for reading, enjoy!

Even though fall is past, this image captures how I feel about the weather right now. I took this image in November of 2009. I went out in search for fall leaves. I wanted something with rich color to express the current season. I drove out to Julian with this goal in mind and plenty of time to do some shooting. I hiked around in search for trees that were changing colors. I shot a few things but didn't find anything that I was really that excited about. So I packed up my stuff and started to head back to San Diego. I was feeling a little down on my drive back for not accomplishing what I had set out to do.

The sun had set and the light was quickly fading as I drove through part of town. Just off the side of the road I saw this tree with large full branches of beautifully colored leaves. I pulled the car over and got my camera out, excited about my discovery. It was cold and the wind was picking up, rustling the branches about.

I increased my ISO setting to 500 and changed my aperture to 3.5. I did this so I could shoot a little faster to freeze the action of the moving branches. I was shooting close ups and didn't want them to translate into blurry blobs of color. The settings on my camera worked well, but still I had little light to work with, so I also used my tripod to keep things sturdy. This image was created at 1/30 of a sec, so the tripod was helpful. The aperture setting also gave me a low depth of field which creates a soft feeling in this image that I really like, and the leaves in focus show up beautifully crisp.

This tree came across my path just in time. I stayed there and took a few more shots as it got dark and then packed up my things. On my way home, I felt better knowing the last shots I did were going to come out great. Just when I stopped looking, I found what I went there for, weird how that happens.

What Type of Image are You Projecting?

We all project an image through what we choose as our surroundings, one part of this is the color that we surround ourselves with. Color has a strong effect on our lives. Colors can affect us physically in how the wavelengths hit our eye. Color can also cause emotional reactions, sometimes as a result of how our eyes are affected physically by the light wavelengths. We often surround ourselves with colors that we enjoy, which can vary widely between individuals. Although our likes and dislikes of color are very different depending on the person, there are universal ways in which we as human beings react to color. The following is some information compiled from color studies and books on the subject to help you decipher what the color around you is saying.

In all areas of life we strive for balance. The same is with color. In studies done by Rikard Küller in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the effects of color and patterns were measured with EEG’s (brain wave activity), and EKG’s (heart rate). Six men and six women were put in 2 rooms for a period of 3 hours. One room was gray and sterile. The other room was colorful and diversified. The subjects’ brain wave activity was lower in the colorful room than in the gray room. Also the subjects’ heart rates were slower in the colorful room than in the gray room. These results were consistent with other research in concluding that a dull environment can prod brain activity and actually create anxiety or stress.

In a later study done by Goldstein, connections were measured between patients and two specific hues of color, red and green. The patients with brain damage and Parkinson’s disease we’re exposed to red and green in different groups. He found those patients with Parkinson’s disease that we’re exposed to red tended to worsen in their pathological condition, while those exposed to green seemed to improve. Goldstein also found patients with brain damage were excited by red and calmed by green. This indicated that certain colors are more arousing than others. The level of excitement can be explained partly by the physical aspects of the green and red light wave lengths.

Red light wavelengths, which are long, have a natural focal point past our retina. So our eyes have to adjust to focus them. This creates the illusion that red advances towards us and makes red objects often look closer than they appear. The opposite is true of green. Green light wavelengths have a natural focal point that is exactly on the retina of our eye. This makes green easy to look at, less arousing, and gives the color a relaxing nature. Thus, colors with longer wavelengths tend to be more arousing than colors with shorter wavelengths.

So what other associations are there between color and human reaction? In 1961 K. Warner Schaie wanted to know this question. He analyzed the adjectives people associate to certain colors. He presented groups of people with 10 colors. He asked them to pick from 11 given adjectives and apply them to each color they thought corresponded. The following are some of his results:

Red: exciting, stimulating, strong, aggressive.

Blue: relaxing, secure, comfortable.

Purple: dignified, exclusive, mournful, mysterious.

Orange: stimulating, lively, energetic, sociable.

Yellow: cheerful, sunny, vital, high-spirited.

Green: relaxing, tranquil, refreshing, natural, quiet.

A combination of these colors can also conjure certain emotions. Here are a few suggestions of color combinations and what they can create. Color schemes with orange are often used to project friendliness. This could include orange, yellow and red, or orange, green and purple. These combinations have a sense of energy to them but luck lack a strong sense of power. The idea of fresh can be created with color schemes using green and blue. These are associated with color combinations in nature and can project feelings of health and vitality. Dependability can be attained with a color scheme involving navy blue. And to tone down the sternness level of dependability, a little red or gold can be added.

I hope this fuels some ideas if you are thinking about changing or adding something to your surroundings. Just remember Küller’s study and create some balance in your environment by adding variety. Take a look around your office or home. Think about what the surroundings you have chosen say about you and what they are communicating to the other people in your life.