A Class on Color Harmony and Perception
New Skillshare Class Alert! My journey in photography, video, and color science. Inspiration and "the why." Transform your color grading approach. Sign up for Skillshare trial and watch for free :)
A few days ago I tried to remember how long I've been into cameras, photography, and video. I think it was around 2006 or 2007 when I got my first dSLR, and soon after, I started taking on small gigs for photo sessions. Not long after that, I got my first mini DV camera, a Canon HV 40, and after doing a few short films with friends, I was noticed by both Dallas Baptist University (which I was attending at the time and hired me to produce video work for them) and other students who were getting married and looking for a videographer, introducing me to the wedding industry.
It's been quite a ride since then. While my experience as a photographer and videographer/filmmaker has given me more than I ever expected, I've tried not to lose that first element of discovery, enthusiasm, passion, and inspiration that I got when I first grabbed my old Nikon d70, knowing nothing about photography. I remember taking a class of film photography during my bachelor’s degree and spending nights in the university's darkroom (where I eventually became a lead assistant for other students). There's so much I could write about this and so many stories to share.
Magnum, Street Photography, and Color
There is one side of photography that I never really felt drawn to—the flashy, popularity-seeking, or glamorous aspects of the job. While I have had the opportunity to work with some well-known individuals and have filmed in incredible locations with affluent clients, I never understood what there is to brag about how high you are on the industry ladder. The rise of social media has amplified this effect, and in the pursuit of likes and followers, popular culture and the language of images have—in many cases—become very superficial. Of course, there are exceptions, but the world of photography and video online often revolves around "inspiring" or "good looking" images for Instagram or the most "cinematic" look on content creators' YouTube videos. Even though I love cinema, I have always had some reservations about the term "cinematic" in this context, by the way. For years, I felt like an enemy of all these trends, which partly made me resist learning more about color science from the beginning. I guess I thought of myself as a purist who enjoyed working with the basics, but in reality, it was a bit more stubbornness and just wanting to stay in my comfort zone.
I did know the basics, though, and having an Art Degree, I took some painting and traditional media classes that taught me about palettes and more, but I thought that was all there was to it. Well, that was until I got really serious about street photography and discovered the photo agency Magnum and work by incredible color photographers like Alex Webb, Pinkhasov, and Harry Gruyaert. Their work truly made me want to learn the magic behind their images, so I decided to learn as much as I could about color.
The Discovery of "Lifelike"
I watched hundreds of tutorials, read countless articles, and took as many online courses on the topic of color for photography and video as I could. But it wasn't until I accidentally stumbled upon the now-abandoned blog of Pavel Kosenko, a Russian photographer, that I felt I had found something BIG. At first, I was just happy to have found galleries that Pavel was sharing of photographers I knew. I guess I was happy to had found someone with a similar photography taste. Then I read he had created an app called "Degradr" that I couldn't find anywhere (more on this later). Pavel's photography also became greatly inspirational, but my single biggest discovery on color was a book he wrote called "LIFELIKE."
The book was published in 2013. It seemed quite technical but useful. Unfortunately, it was only in Russian and I only had Google to help me with the translation. I quickly gave up. I was super excited to know that it was finally translated into English in 2015, so I tried to read it again. At first, a lot of it flew over my head because it felt so dense in knowledge, so I really took my time to go through it. By the end, I was mind-blown. I felt I had learned so much about color science in a way that I had never found before, especially when it came to analog photography or traditional color principles applied to modern tools and image processing. More people needed to know about this.
Skillshare, Teaching, and Dehancer
Some years later, when I discovered Skillshare, I immediately thought about teaching some of the color principles I had learned in my journey, particularly, a lot of the techniques and concepts I learned from the LIFELIKE book. But it seemed like a huge project to tackle. Around that time, Pavel, the author of the book, released Dehancer, an app that replaced the then-discontinued Degradr, built with a much more user-friendly interface approach, using everything he learned in his own journey in photography and color research. If you've followed me for a while, you've likely heard me mention Dehancer before, as I was amazed by this app from the very first time I tried it.
Early this year, in the midst of upgrading my office and trying to set up a small recording studio for YouTube and more class productions, I was thinking about what I should teach. I received the news that Skillshare had this challenge for their teachers to publish a class before the end of March and decided to go for it. I blocked out the entire month to do this. I went back and reread the book LIFELIKE, looked everywhere throughout my work and experience for ways to easily illustrate some concepts and techniques, and tried to expand where I found necessary and simplify in some other areas. I also drew from past experience in commercial work, things or tricks I've learned on Final Cut Pro X and Lightroom.
A Class on Color is Born
I am VERY HAPPY to finally be able to release “Expressive Color: Mastering Harmony and Perception in Photography & Video.” I tried to make this for anyone that deals with cameras, photo, video, or even just digital image processing. The class itself is not about how to use any specific app, but rather I explore color science from both a bit of the technical side (illustrating some things mostly with RGB curves, which most color editing applications have) and from the creative, artistic, and expressive side, which I am personally much more interested in. Both elements are necessary, and that is what I may have found the most impactful when I first read LIFELIKE and even later when I started using Dehancer.
Most tutorials on color grading out there are good, and there's nothing inherently wrong with them. I have done a few myself and may do some more :) However, for the most part, they only teach how to replicate techniques or achieve specific results. They don't dive into the fundamentals of color theory because, well, the results are enough for most people. That is, until you encounter something you can't fix, and then you have to look for another tutorial to address the issue. In this new class, I want students to have a deeper understanding of how colors work, enabling them to make informed decisions when color grading.
I do think that with this one hour course I am giving my students the essential, simplified, and more up-to-date information than what I found originally in the book that inspired it. I may have made it more targeted to this digital age where almost everyone is a photographer or a videographer in some way. The author, Pavel Kosenko, has posted most of his book for free, by the way, and you can read it HERE if you would like to go deeper into the science aspect and technicalities. I just hope that with my experience and personal knowledge, I have clarified and enriched some of the concepts that I found very transformative for the way I personally do things.
Specifically, my class on color harmony and perception attempts to do the following:
Teach the essentials of lightness, hue, and saturation.
Teach how to manipulate saturation and contrast strategically to achieve intensity, detail, and variation of tones.
Teach visual and color harmony techniques inspired by traditional media for creating cohesive color schemes and palettes with digital tools.
Talk about how to embrace artistic expression and break away from traditional color norms.
Allow students to take bold, expressive color choices in their projects.
The Reason Behind All of This
This newsletter and my overall presence online may seem very random. I am aware of this and I’m okay with it. My brand, if you can call it that, is all over the place. Just do a quick Google search for Robert J. P. Oberg, and you'll find "Robert the piano composer," "Robert the productivity guy who talks about apps, creating or programming Alfred workflows or shortcuts," "Robert the dude who enjoys street photography, digital film emulation, fiction writing, journaling, creativity, and personal development”, “Robert the cursive professor,” and "Robert the wedding videographer and photographer." Despite this apparent randomness, everything is connected for me. They are means for me to uncover meaning in the world around me. I find memories, nostalgia, images, sounds, time, and life itself so precious and worth preserving. This constant search for understanding and appreciation of color is merely an extension of the same underlying desire: to find beauty in even the simplest of things.
I hope that this class will make a difference to someone. There's more than what I mentioned above, and you can actually enroll in the class for free by using Skillshare's trial over at THIS LINK.
I have many plans for more classes and video content. I am now all set up in the new studio/office so I can record decent-looking videos anytime with minimal effort. This should give me no excuses to create and share more. So I am excited about this, and if you have anything that you'd like me to create either YouTube or Skillshare/Udemy content on, I'm all ears. Just hit “reply” if you are getting this by email or comment down below if you are on Substack’s site.
I'm coming back next Monday for my usual weekly updates. Thanks for reading!
If you liked this you may also enjoy some content I have up on my YT Channel! I don’t hang around social media a lot, but when I do I’m on IG or Twitter. You can also check out some of my online classes, listen to my music, or in case you haven’t already, subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Thank you for reading!