Complementary Colors

For some time I have liked this image that I took many years ago at the Oregon Dunes, near Florence, Oregon. I knew it was because of the juxtaposition of the cool tones of the sky and the warm tones of the sand. But I later realized that it goes beyond that. The colors are also complementary, meaning they lie on opposite sides of the color wheel, which generally forms a relationship that humans find pleasing. In this original image, the colors were on opposite sides of the color wheel but not exactly at 180 degrees.

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© Howard Grill

I decided to ‘‘play around’ a little bit and see what would happen if I brought the colors closer to being truly complementary. I ended up with the image below.

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© Howard Grill

The image is obviously very similar, but the sand is a little redder and the sky slightly purpler (is purpler a word?). Interestingly, I prefer the second image, but then again, that could simply be confirmation bias. What do you think?

Just a little experiment I decided to try as I learn more about color and controlling it!

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