Color Workshop with Teresa Freitas

A lot of my photographic work is in black and white, but in truth, I love color photography. The problem is, I don’t seem to be as adept at it as I am with monochrome. I tend to like bold, saturated colors—and knowing this—I tend to overcompensate and make my images duller and possibly less interesting for fear of having colors that are too punchy. The main point is, I’m not confident in what I’m doing when it comes to color photography, at least nowhere near as when I’m editing my black and white work. So when I saw Teresa Freitas was going to have a workshop in San Francisco, I jumped at the chance.

For those not familiar with Teresa’s work, she is known for her pastel-like colors in her photography. Some people even compare her to Wes Anderson, the famous filmmaker, but I feel like she has a style all her own. When I first heard about her and checked out her Instagram feed, I couldn’t believe some of the pictures were actually photographs. I had never seen anything like it.

My purpose in taking the workshop was not to learn how to copy Teresa’s style, but rather learn how she sees and uses color in her photography and see if there was a way to incorporate that into my own style. After all, I have taken some photographs and edited them like her as best I could, and some of them look really cool, but they’re not me. They definitely look like someone else’s work and not my own. The biggest reason was because I didn’t know the why behind my editing. I was just trying to emulate someone else without really understanding the intricacies.

Before I get into what I learned and how the weekend impacted me,  I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the wonderful fellow photographers taking the class with me. There were six of us in total which made for a very intimate workshop. I’ve been to several workshops and many of them devolve into cliques and sycophants. Instead, this group was welcoming and open and supportive. When it came time at the end of the weekend to showcase our photos, everyone hooped and hollered and applauded each other’s work. Truly a great group of people.

On the first day, before we went out shooting, Teresa gave a presentation of her work and her philosophy of using color in street photography. It also included several different color theory strategies she wanted each of us to employ while out shooting over the weekend. I’d heard most of the theories before, but talking about them in the context of street photography—and giving us specific color theory assignments to try and capture—brought it closer from concept to reality for me.

I was most curious about how Teresa’s approach to color would impact my personal style. The majority of my work centers around calm, peaceful moments, mostly in black and white. When I do use color, it’s as an accent and/or understated. Shooting with Teresa, however, brought color out front and center.

While walking and shooting in San Francisco’s Chinatown, bold colors were everywhere, and not just on the buildings. Since it was a freakishly hot day in the city, people wore bright colored clothing that fit right in with the rich environment and made for plenty of opportunities for capturing complimentary and/or analogous colors.

Instead of looking for contrast, shadows, or textures, it was exciting to see if I could pair interesting colors on the outside of buildings with people who were walking through the scene. Obviously, I’ve shot plenty of color street photography before, but when I did, I looked for similar silhouette shots to my black and white work or obvious color matching situations. I had never been out looking for strong colors at the expense of everything else, and I have to say, it was really fun.

My inner color monster had been released and I looked for reds and oranges, blues and greens—and my favorite—yellows. While we were shooting, it was more about the colors first. Usually, I’m looking at people and situations, but since our objectives were different, so was the way we hunted for the right photo.

Once the light turned bright and flat, we grabbed some lunch and then headed back to the residence to work on our post-processing. Shooting was fun, but the real reason I took the workshop was for Teresa’s editing techniques. I’ve seen many a great color street photograph, but rarely ones as aesthetically captivating as hers. So if I could glean some helpful tips and tricks, the workshop would end up being worth it.

The biggest thing I learned from her was simplicity. I’ve watched so many other photographers over the years employing various editing techniques that my own workflow has become lengthy and bloated.

While editing some of my work, Teresa came and sat with me and simplified the process for me. As an example, I only moved three sliders in the Basic panel of Lightroom (Highlights, Shadows, and Vibrance). The real magic happens in the Color Mixer panel. I had used it before, but never to the extent that Teresa showed me. One tip that helped a lot was to organize the color adjuster to “Color” instead of “HSL.” That way, you can concentrate on perfecting one color at a time instead of worrying about the Saturation or Luminance of all the colors at once.

The biggest area of difference between Teresa’s taste and my own is in contrast. Teresa seems like low contrast images whereas I live and die by hard blacks and bright whites. While in the workshop, I used her low contrast suggestions, and I was happy with the results. However, a few days after getting home from the workshop, I re-edited the photos from the workshop and found that I wanted to add more contrast to them, with the exception of a couple of pictures.

There are a few drawbacks to this kind of photography. The biggest one being there aren’t a ton of places with such vibrant color pallets, at least not where I live just outside Sacramento. There are definitely spots, but one location can get overused rather quickly. One needs to travel a lot to fully take advantage of these techniques (not necessarily a bad thing). The other disadvantage is the sunlight requirement. Shooting bright colors on a cloudy day is impossible, so shooting in the winter can make things challenging if where you live is overcast most of the time.

After all is said and done, I am happy I participated in this workshop. I learned a ton and met some truly wonderful people. I now have a much firmer grasp on how to use color in my day-to-day photography and will definitely keep it as another tool in my belt.