Light - Dark Contrast

Light - Dark Contrast

Light - Dark Contrast is possibly one of the most simple of Itten's colour theories to visually explore and communicate. In its simplest form, it displays the variation in tone from the most vivid white to the most intense black and the subsequent tones of grey - almost infinite shades of grey. However it becomes slightly more complicated when moving from the monochromatic spectrum to colour - "The light - dark evaluation of chromatic colours and their relationships to the achromatic colours - black, white and grey - is far more complicated". This is because when hues from the gradients of different colours are compared, it is harder to - "identify colours of equal brilliance accurately".

In practise, I only intend to assess the tones of one colour - green - so in effect it is as simple as examining a monochromatic spectrum. When considering a practical way to do this I decided a simple visual experiment would be to get a green sheet of paper, crumple it and photograph this various times. The result of this was a set of photos displaying varying tints and shades of green going from dark in the shadows to light on the highlights. Colour theory aside, as compositions I think they work well as intricate and tactile photos, reminiscent of modern geometric design.

In order to explore light - dark contrast, on Photoshop I took various swatches ranging from light to dark. I then compared these to Greenery and found that I got some really close hues.

Although this idea was simple and fairly easy to carry out, I do think it successfully communicates Itten's colour theory of light - dark contrast and displays the interaction between light and colour in a practical setting.