Coastal Tension

Reflection

• Surreal atmosphere through colour experimentation
• The unnatural colours play the main role in achieving the surreal feel of this image
• Inverted value of the sky adds to surreal mood and atmosphere
• Normally light to dark (bottom to top); in this case it's the opposite -> dark to light
• Also leads to high value contrast against the sea
• Darkest sky value against lightest sea value on the horizon 
• Colour contrast through complementary colours
• Low saturation in the blues to not overpower the tension between the top and bottom half
• High saturation of the sky
• Composition: Division into two half's
• Top versus bottom half
• Simple composition creates balance
• Controlled shapes
• Higher value contrast in the foreground to create depth   

Original Photograph & Development Process

(+ Analysis)

The original photograph was taken on a day trip to the coast near Arbroath on a nice sunny, yet windy day creating nice waves to capture in some of the photographs. The first thing that captured my eye in this picture was the oval form/shape the waves formed in the focal point of the image. This photo manipulation however will deal with the horizon and sky.

In the first stages I cropped and changed the hue to a very surreal looking atmosphere. At this point everything is very monochrome. The dark foreground in the bottom corner creates depth in the image.

Then I chose to remove the foreground though and focus on the mood and atmosphere of the piece rather than on creating depth and 3 dimensionality. The flattening of the image and reduction of saturation created unity in the image. The crop also led to more balance between the top and bottom half by shifting the horizon towards the centre, which is the horizontal division line between the two dominating spaces.

Finally to add tension to the final image I created colour contrast by implementing the sky's complementary colour into the bottom half by changing the reddish/pinkish hue of the water to a cool blue (working against the orange sky). The blue's saturation is very low though which maintains a pleasant and comfortable viewing as it the colour contrast does not overpower the whole scene this way.