The Online Photographer

Cool, With an Accent

...I meant to mention yesterday that the "Girl in Red" autochrome from 1913 is a good example of "cool with a warm accent," which is one of maybe a dozen or so basic, baseline strategies for making a picture appeal to people.

Curiously, it doesn't work the other way around—"warm with a cool accent" might work or might not, but doesn't necessarily have any intrinsic appeal.

The appeal seems to come from somewhere deep in our brains. Perhaps it's due to some deep species memory that hearkens back to 50,000 years of human existence during which the sight of a campfire in the deepening gloom of dusk was one of the most welcome sights any homo sapiens could see. Whatever the reason for it, 'tis a strategy that works well. Something to be aware of if you're not already.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Carsten Bockermann: "That's probably why National Geographic at some point become known for what is called The Red Shirt School of Photography."

Alan Carmody: "It pleases me that Christina Bevan did not have a smartphone, and that that moment was spent on contemplation and not on a selfie. Something about her clothes makes her seem contemporary."

Adrian Malloch: "I teach photography to students along with mentoring experienced professional photographers. One subject I emphasise early on is visual literacy. It includes the concept of the emotional value of colour and what the photographic consequences are of that understanding. Yes, the warmth and safety of the campfire against the backdrop of the cool toned backdrop where danger lurked is very likely, in human evolutionary terms, to have created our instinctive emotional relationship with those colours. There are other likely colour triggers, such as aerial perspective—that's the phenomenon whereby distant objects become increasingly blue due to the accumulated effect of water droplets in the atmosphere; stereotypically, distant hills. To our palaeolithic ancestors, distant things are not emotionally relevant. That is, they had little to fear or like about them. More importantly, blue becomes associated with distance. On the other hand, the nearby warmth of skin tone is something we all have an emotional connection to. Warm colours have become intrinsically associated with closeness.

"Of course colour is not the only dichotomy to imply emotional and spatial distance: light and dark, large and small, pattern and formlessness, sharp and soft, and many more are there to be exploited by the thinking photographer."

Herman: "I suppose we see red more easily than keeping cool."

Mike replies: You're bad!  :-)

David Raboin: "Berries against green foliage is a warm accent on a cool background and it's appreciated across many species."

Open Mike: Dog Lover (OT)

Dagnabbit, I had four more posts for yesterday and just ended up working on "stuff" all afternoon. I'm amazed at the amount of stuff I have to take care of. I feel like the Earl of Downton if he had no staff.

Anyway, for Open Mike this week—a day late again—a personal question from a dog lover: anybody out there use any kind of electric fence?

Dear Butters has taken to charging to the road when he sees someone (dog or human) he wants to meet. This is new. He bolts at full speed and ignores my recall command. I know him—he thinks he's being mischievous and high-spirited, just off to be sociable—but his new habit will never do. It's bad in all kinds of ways. I have an electric fence guy coming on Thursday and just wondered if anyone has had any experiences with one, good, bad or indifferent.

My family had an ancient precursor of today's electric fences way back in the 1970s. The box on the dog's collar was half as big as a brick and about as heavy. The first dog, a male, would gather up his courage and leap through the fence, putting up with the shock for the sake of freedom. The second dog, a female, would skedaddle to her doghouse in the garage whenever we put the collar on her and refuse to come out. Not a successful experiment. But I assume the technology has improved.

Thanks!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Chris: "Why not have a plain old fence? Never heard of electric fences for dogs; here, electric fences tend to be one-line jobs intended to keep cows or horses in a field!"

Mike replies: I think you're thinking of an electrified fence. What I mean is a pet fence—of which there are two types. One is a physical wire buried in the ground which sends a signal to the dog's collar, first to sound a warning noise as the dog gets close, then to administer correction (a shock). The other kind uses the same effect, but happens when the dog gets too far away from a central transmitter. The latter kind creates a circle. Since I have a very odd-shaped property with only one problem area—the road in front, accessible only through the gaps in the buildings—a buried wire makes more sense. I'll know more on Thursday when the estimator comes.

Merle: "About a decade or so ago, we visited a friend who had installed one. Couldn't keep enough batteries. His larger, older dog would sidle up close enough to the fence that it would give him a good buzz and just lay down until the batteries were exhausted. Then he could go do whatever he pleased. Even the owner thought it was funny."