COLOR INSIDE YOUR HEAD

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 12:08.

I have a theory that images influence our mood.  In particular, I believe that color and shape  in images impact our daily behavior.  Images certainly may even control more than our mood, but let’s start simply with mood.   There are images we turn our heads away from because we don’t want to view them, and there are images which we return again and again to view.  What does that tell you? 

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- ImcShane says “paint it red” on Realneo.  

- Flower stores sell bright colors and smells.

- Crayolas are in every child’s room.

- Coke trademarks its curvy logo and it’s red color.

- Almost all US cars are painted in dull colors – white (not a color)  is the most “popular”.

- Caribbean clothes and structures and plants and fish are full of bright colors.  Do colder temperatures diminish expression of color? But Russia has brilliant scientists.

- Black cloth is draped on coffins and worn to many cultures’ funerals.

- Penthouse and Playboy Magazine impact behavior with images – shape more than color?

- Many plants’ and animals’ reproductive structures/behaviors are brightly colored.

- Do you enjoy looking at your pet?  Why.

- What would happen if parents didn’t like to look at their baby or children?

- Artists can paint in black and white – though a pallet of colors is most often used.

- Are images the most efficient means of communicating and educating?  Certainly we humans interpret images long before we learn to read (as children and as a species).

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Do you visit this web page in part because it has changing images?  Do you prefer to see upbeat, cheerful images when you come to Realneo,  or photos demonstrating serious societal challenges - dilapidated buildings,  murdered storekeepers, crippled veterans?  Which genre of images do you find motivates you in - your daily life - to make an effort to make change…Do you enjoy images just because they show you something new – something you haven’t seen before?  If so, does that boil down to enjoying images because they are educational?

 

How does color in images offer enjoyment and effect your daily mood?  Or maybe it’s just me that eats color as a necessary nutrient in my diet.  Or, are different hormones or other chemicals excreted by our brain in response to different images and colors?

 

Photo: “Lollypop Sisters Face-Painted By Emma”

 

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Very thought provoking - and great image

Jeff, did you take the photo? Hwere/when? Very nice.

It is interesting to consider one side of this question I have experienced, with photography and going from black and white to color - print to digital. Now I can easily make any photo plack and white, or anything else I want - so I can tune images to extract the chemicals I want from the brains that see them - more red for high impact - blue for cold - yellow for warm - soft or sharp - there becomes little definition between photojournalism and art, and between photography and new-media.

Disrupt IT

REAL KIDS, REAL LOLLYPOPS

My daughter provided child care for these girls 5 or 6 years ago.  When Emma brought them by the house to see me, I knew they were a hoot to  photo.  This shot was taken in our front doorway.  No digital changes in the image. 

The mind color I'm discussing isn't photographic filtering - I'm interested in real world color, the flowers, the cars, the sky.  It's those outside our head colors that I believe impact our moods.