Red Rooves, Blue Bells - A Cautionary Note on Colour and Vibrancy

I must admit, I’m usually slightly wary of scenes which rely on particularly vivid colour… sunsets, say, or rainbows. And yes, splashes of bluebells.

These are clearly iconic subjects, which are a joy to witness and to shoot. Yet, for the modern digital photographer, they lead to a dilemma: how to apply post-processing in a measured fashion, to showcase the natural wonder without over-doing the saturation and making the scene look artificial.

One obvious solution - used by most as a default - is to simply let the camera decide, and go with whatever the built-in digital algorithms think we want to see. And that’s fine, of course. For frequent or casual shooters, it’s certainly the most pragmatic option. But it doesn’t account for the photographer’s artistic vision, or allow for the image to be moulded by our personal creative choices. And for those shooting in RAW format (such as myself), the camera’s information-rich yet flat-looking files do need some form of caressing just to bring the images back to what we might call ‘reality’*.

*What we actually mean by ‘reality’ is a separate discussion, which I won’t go into here! :-0

The trouble is, when the perceived quality of a scene is determined by the magnificence of colour - how vivid is that sunset, how striking the rainbow - then the temptation is to continue cranking up those sliders until reality is flailing somewhere in the rear-view mirror. And if we massage the colours gradually enough, conditioned by the picture-perfect super-shots of social media and AI, we might not even notice it happening.

It’s a rookie mistake… but unfortunately, one that I’m still guilty of making! :-(

Let me just say, though - unless you’re a photojournalist (or some other form of documentary photographer), there is room for post-processing to exhibit artistic expression. Art has no rules, so choosing to make your colours ‘pop’ can be just as valid and rewarding as choosing black & white… provided (I believe) we do so in good faith. Pop art is knowingly vibrant, for example, yet few would call foul (even if it isn’t to everybody’s taste). The problem, I think, is when the manipulation is a little more insidious, leading to images which purport to reflect reality but either mislead or fail miserably in the attempt.

In terms of my own trip to the Red Barn bluebells… one of my main aims on photoshoots is to convey (with intent) how a place makes me feel. Colourful and vibrant are certainly adjectives which spring to mind at such a special location, whether applied literally or metaphorically. To illustrate this in the field, I waited patiently for the sun to break through the Dartmoor cloud and illuminate the scene… and then, yes, I also strove to make the colours ‘pop’ somewhat during my post-processing in Lightroom. Viewing the resulting edits on my laptop, I felt I’d pushed the envelope just enough, reaching the edge of what I could (or should) reasonably present.

But here’s the sting in the tail, which has prompted this whole ‘colourful’ aside. Upon completion, I’d posted my Red Barn images to a private family chat on WhatsApp, and happened to be looking over Karen’s shoulder when they scrolled into view on her mobile phone. Although she kindly declined to say so, I immediately thought they looked over-saturated, especially in those dominant reds and blues. Capturing the vivid character of a place is one thing… but had I simply pushed it too far, only to have this revealed to me once I could view the images through somebody else’s eyes?

Well… maybe. Except, they didn’t look quite so bad when revisited at source on my laptop. And I’m probably late to the party with this, but it led me to investigate the difference (on average) between laptop screens and mobile phone displays.

Sure enough… mobile displays are generally brighter and more vibrant, using a default colour setting of Vivid rather than sRGB (standard Red Green Blue). I won’t go into all of the technical detail, especially as I don’t fully understand most of what AI threw at me! But suffice to say that an image calibrated for viewing on a laptop will appear quite different on most people’s mobile screens (and not just for obvious reasons of size). Those with cross-platform photography websites (mentioning no names) should obviously take note!

Of course, I do have the option of generating fresh (less saturated) Red Barn edits… but for now, I’ll leave what I have as a record of where my initial instincts took me. The thing that’s more valuable, I feel, is the underlying lesson: in photography, as in life more generally, things are not always as they first appear.

So what’s the upshot of all this? Well, if you happen to be viewing my Red Barn pics on a mobile (or any screen with a vivid display setting), and you feel I’ve over-egged the pudding, rest assured that part of me agrees with you. The other part of me says that I should follow the courage of my convictions, and give my own artistic vision - my post-processing stamp, if you like - some space to breathe. Either way, I obviously can’t control inherent differences in display settings. What I can do is be more conscious of that wise old adage (another lesson in life): sometimes, less is definitely more! ;-)