gradients in photography

What does a gradient do in photography?

It can communicate depth in a photo

When you are looking at a photo, it is a two dimensional image. Meaning that it doesn’t pop out at you like an object does or a sculpture or your cat.

These are all three dimensional.

Photos and art have to use visual cues to communicate to your brain that there is depth to the object being photographed.

Gradient is one of the methods that accomplish this.

Take a look at these photos and think about how the changing of color (gradient) tells your brain about the distance between you and the objects in the photo.

Perspective

This idea of depth in a photo is also called PERSPECTIVE.

When you are looking at a picture, it is a two dimensional object. It just has height (top to bottom) and width (side to side). It’s not three dimensional since it doesn’t take up space front to back, or come out at you. Think about a circle and a sphere. The circle is a two dimensional shape and a sphere is three dimensional, taking up space with height, width AND depth.

Because a picture is only two dimensional, artists and photographers have been using tricks for yeeeeears to make them appear as though they are three dimensional. This makes the picture or art more believable. And makes you feel like you’re really there!

This is called perspective.

Check out these photos for some more examples.

illustrate time

You can tell instantly by looking at a photo of the sky what time of day it is. Well, maybe not the exact time. But you can tell by the colors and how light or dark the sky is if it is morning, afternoon or evening.

Take a look at the sky in these photos and see if you can determine the time by studying the gradient in the sky.