Editing: Adding Drama to a Photograph Through Color

It was already thrilling enough standing in a lightning storm on train tracks that are frequently in use, but to accidentally capture lightning during my long exposure was amazing. The whole time I was praying God still liked me.

I knew I wanted to photograph this scene on a rainy night so that the highlights would be stronger from the wet rocks, bricks, and railroad tracks in this scene.

Originally I pictured this scene in black and white, but I'm a sucker for color, and when I saw the slightly purple hue in the sky around the lightning, it inspired me to saturate the purple in the sky to make it more interesting and dramatic. Because of that decision, I enhanced the red in the bricks and shifted the yellow lights to orange. Purple, red, and orange are exciting colors. They're also analogous colors, meaning they're next to each other on a color wheel. Any time you put three colors together that are next to each other on a color wheel, it looks good, and in this case, it adds excitement to the image! Reds and yellows are high-energy, exciting colors that grab attention. I've also noticed artists adding subtle multiple-color gradients that add another layer of interest to an image.

Before and after: The Lightning at Marietta Square

Color plays a significant psychological role in design and advertising. There's a reason Longhorn's uses shades of red, gold, and brown on their exteriors, which makes you think of hot food when you pull into the parking lot. In contrast, I recently saw a Mexican restaurant that was painted gray on the outside, which didn't communicate a festive atmosphere or hot food to me.