Photographer Leverages Vivid Colors to Convey a Visceral Vibe
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Loading... - Arjun Anand
- 10 Jun 2022
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Polina Washington spent years only shooting and printing black and white film before adapting powerful and vibrant color to tell a story in her photos.
Connecting with Color in Photography
Based in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, and is currently staying in Bali, Indonesia, Washington is a self-described visual explorer. Although she acquired a degree in cinematography, she rarely if ever worked with artificial light in her photography, and exclusively shot on black and white film and says didn’t really understand color.
“I never imagined photography in color,” Washington tells PetaPixel. “I liked playing with contrasts, silhouettes.”
“I liked that you could cut out the superfluous,” she continues. “But at some point, I just got tired of it, and I wanted to move on. It wasn’t enough for me to do monochrome anymore.”
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Since her creative switch to color, Washington still creates black and white shots, but only on rare occasions and mostly in situations when she can’t enhance the desired feeling she wants to portray using color.
Seeing as color and light go hand in hand for visual storytelling, Washington sees both as two powerful tools in this process.
“Before, I could only achieve a color picture with colored light, but then I learned to see it in natural light as well, with the same processing,” she explains.
Telling a Story with Color and Light
During her creative journey, Washington learned to read how color and light affect a photograph, and how to use a combination of both to create cinematic stills with painterly vibes in line with her current photography style. Read More...
