USING COLOR THEORY AND COMPLEMENTARY COLORS ON MY LAST EVER PLAYBOY SHOOT
In September 2020 I have voluntarily quit working for Playboy Magazine after 19 amazing years of service. My previous issue's cover and editorial were photographed entirely with iPhone 11 using Halide and published unretouched (another Playboy world first!), so I wanted to do something clasy and elegant for my final issue. Here it is, the chosen final image:
So let me explain the two reasons my last ever photoshoot for Playboy with model Lara Mlaker is so special to me:
First, it is the car.
The Citroen DS pallas was the automobile that my dad used to own for nearly two decades. I grew up with that car and fell deeply in love with it. It had hydraulic air suspension, rotating (directional) headlights previously seen only on the 1948 Tucker Torpedo and was the first mass produced car with disc brakes. It was huge and comfy.
It was probably one of the most beautiful cars the land of croissants and berets ever produced - designed by an Italian sculptor (Bertoni) and French aeronautical engineer (Lefebvre). My dad’s DS, just like our model featured here, had the pallas luxury upgrade and was way ahead of its time.
Second, it is the cinematic colors.
The color theory, as you know, helps us understand the hues, saturations and brightness of the colors and puts them into a schematic structure. By using complementary colors - the ones on the opposite side of the color wheel - you achieve the strongest contrast in a totally natural way. After visiting Arles for the third time last summer I wanted to do a hommage to Van Gogh’s Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, made in 1888.
The primary use of blue and yellow, with just sporadic touches of other colors, makes his masterpiece oh so appealing. It was not easy to eliminate the unwanted colors in camera on a sunny rooftop parking lot, but by doing it I got the cyan blues and skin tones interacting in a beautiful simultaneous contrast. The model is also unretouched.
