Useful Photography Tip

Why No Photographer Should Underestimate the Color Green

Chris Gampat
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07/17/2023
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master review photos Sony a7r V portrait edited 21-1000s400 1

Every photographer knows that the colors black, gray, and white can go with everything. In fact, there’s a joke about photographers and NYers only ever wearing the color black. Truly, they’re just easy colors to work with in so many different ways. But there’s another color that I think every photographer completely underestimates: green. Some folks may not like it. And a lot of photographers may not ever give it any thought. Green is the ultimate color in so many different ways. Don’t believe us? Well, just look at nature.

The inspiration for this article comes from both fashion and nature. If you look at the color spectrum, green is right in the middle of ROYGBIV. So green can go with pretty much any color as it’s right in the center. And this is confirmed by nature. Here are a bunch of examples:

  • Green and red go together for roses, watermelons, and other plants.
  • Green and orange go together for trees, tulips, parrots, etc.
  • Green and yellow go together with flowers and trees like bananas.
  • Green and blue go together by looking at rivers and how greenery is often right besides the waterfronts.
  • Indigo pairs with green because of natural flowers.
  • Violet, well, look at violet flowers!

Because these colors go so well together in nature, they just make sense to go well together in photography. And so you can use this in portraiture, surreal photography, conceptual photography, product photography, and more. Lots of photographers think of green screens to replace things that you’d randomly see in a background. But we’re talking about organically using the color green in photography.

Here’s a list of photographers that we’ve featured that use the color green really well:

  • Tom Hegan: his aerial photos of gardens showcase how green blends together so well with various other colors.
  • Michael Schauer: Shows how green works well in nature
  • Sydni Indman: shows how green works very well in conceptual portraiture.

So why is all this important? Well, there’s the 3 color portrait rule that helps photographers keep their portraits simpler and easier to make look more aesthetically pleasing. Though we can say that those rules are probably about to get broken really hard due to how AI is generating photos. Photographers are going to need to respond quite differently and start creating in totally different ways.

What’s the 3 Color portrait photography rule? Essentially, it means that you’re working with three main colors in the scene: the subject’s skin, the background, and the wardrobe. This makes the image much easier on the eyes to digest. And there are a myriad of ways that you can make this combination.

There are also ideas of composing by color, which says that the eye more or less ignores the color black. But maybe you can use the color green more often as a replacement for the color black.

Still confused? Well, here are a few ideas that we think you can and should try:

  • Use green lights in a scene and then combine them with motion blur.
  • Use green as a backdrop or with cloth in your next product photo shoot
  • Use green lights to add separation when shooting a portrait subject

Truly this list could go on and on, but you have to find ways to break the rules of photography and stop making it all about clinical sharpness. Go out there and just play. Mess around with various other colors, or even try messing with things like green food coloring. We don’t want to dictate your creativity at all.

If you head to Behance, search by photography, and then sort by the color green, there are tons of ideas. You just need to put your own spin on them.

color theory creativity green images Photography
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.