Use A Little Gestalt Psychology To Make Your Compositions Stronger

Motion attracts attention.

Danger attracts more attention.

Including a person in an image does more than show scale; the person becomes the main actor in the scene.

Typically, man-made objects are almost as interesting as the people who make them, sometimes more.

Animals are almost as captivating as people.

Though they demand less attention than animals, plants still demand more attention than minerals. 

Metaphor, especially anthropomorphism, helps establish human interest in animate elements.

 

You can use psychology’s insights into perception to creatively enhance your compositions. Psychological forces not only divert the flow of the eye through images but also change reactions to image content in specific ways.

While all psychologists agree that perceptions are the products of complex interactions between a variety of stimuli, not all fields of psychology have the same focus and so they offer different insights. One field of psychology offers a particularly rich set of theories for understanding perception – gestalt psychology.


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Explore The Power Of Color Psychology

All The Symbols The Rainbow Contains

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What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see color? Chances are you’re not alone. Color associations come from many sources universal, cultural, regional, communal, and individual. These all change over time, with changes happening faster at the individual level than the global level.

 

It’s useful to understand what associations accompany colors for a majority of people. This understanding can be used to influence perception, clarify statements, reinforce messages, produce physical responses, and elicit emotional reactions.

It’s also useful to understand what associations accompany colors for yourself. This understanding can become the basis for a personal palette that gives your images a unique style. It will clarify and deepen your personal journey.

 

You’ll find classic associations with the colors of the rainbow and more here. You’ll discover classic images connected with color, verbal expressions related to the color, and synonyms or the many words used to describe colors in the same family.

 

Red

Blue

Yellow

Orange

Green

Indigo

Violet

Brown

White

Gray

Black

 

Read more on Color Psychology here.

Learn more in my digital printing and digital photography workshops.

How To Make Color Psychology Your Own

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Studying color psychology will make you a more able and aware communicator. After you familiarize yourself with the ways other people relate to colors it’s time to make it personal.
You have specific and unique relationships with color. This relationship has many layers. It’s a product of your biology, your culture, your time, your community, your experiences, and the reactions you choose.
When you become more mindful of your relationships with color you will deepen them.
Becoming more aware of your personal relationship with colors will lead to personal discoveries, help you communicate more personal messages, and do so in a more personal way.
Begin this journey into color by spending time with color and freely associating. What sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories, associations, words and phrases arise within you when you are in the presence of a color? Ask these questions for as many different colors as you can think of. It helps to look at the color while you’re doing this.
Do this more than once. How have your relationships with colors changed over time? It’s likely you won’t know unless you develop this habit of being more mindful of color. It helps to have a journal to look back and see influences and patterns over time. Keeping a journal can be a mindful practice.
When you first try this you may draw a blank. When was the last time you tried something like this? When you were a child? Reawaken that playful spirit!
Get the process started and guide it along the way with questions. Ask a lot of questions. Instead of looking for one answer look for many responses. Write down your responses. When you write, write for yourself not others. Forget about perfection. Instead, aim for rich and deep. Later, revisit what you write and add more. Continue to use this reflective process to energize and enrich your relationships with colors.
 
Here are a few useful questions to ask.
Do you or don’t you like it? Why?
How does it feel? (Describe the sensation of it.)
When you see a color what to do you feel physically?
How do you feel about it?
When you see a color what do you feel emotionally?
Where do you find it in your environment?
Where do you find it in other environments?
Do you encounter it a certain times (of the day or year) and not others?
What things do you connect with it?
Does it bring back memories?
How often do you wear it?
How often do you use it in your images?
(Look back at all of your images. It can be very interesting to track your use of colors over time.)
 
What other questions can you think of to ask of color?
Write them down.
Find more answers.
Continue your personal journey into color.
 
Read more on Color Psychology here.
Learn more in my digital printing and digital photography workshops.
 

3 Great Books On Color Psychology

Looking for great reading on color psychology?

Start with these three very different books.

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The Color Box

Lori Reid

A simple approachable survey that’s lushly illustrated.

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The Art of Color

Johannes Itten

The expanded version of a true classic The Elements Of Color includes personal exercises and analyses of historic paintings.

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Color and Human Response

Faber Birren

A comprehensive overview of all areas of the field by the most prolific author on color.

Read more on Color Psychology here.

Learn more in my digital printing and digital photography workshops.

 

Color Is An Event

Color doesn’t exist out there. Color is produced inside us. Color is the human response to vibrations in a narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

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Color is an event. In any color event you need a light source and an observer – and often an object that reflects the light perceived. There is no color without an observer – just energetic vibrations.

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Our perception of color is complex; part physical, part biological, part psychological. Understanding more about our different responses to color and how they interact helps visual artists be more visually sensitive observers and more effective communicators.

Read more Color Theory.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.