Capturing Color: Exploring Pantone Shades Through the Lens
When we raise a camera to our eye, we’re not just documenting reality—we’re translating a moment into layers of light, shadow, and Pantone hues that express more than words ever could. Each photo becomes a narrative of color, built from the delicate balance between the subject, the lens, and our visual instincts.
Photography, despite its perceived mechanical nature, is deeply emotional. It often begins with what we feel before what we see. And what we feel is often color. The iconic Pantone system, with its precise articulation of shades, helps us name the feelings we capture—sunset orange, shy lavender, melancholy blue. Behind every Pantone-coded perception is a story waiting to be told in layers of emotion and meaning.
The magic lies in the optics. The camera lens—our modern-day paintbrush—is capable of dissecting ambient light into distinct tonalities. Photo by photo, it isolates the true vibrancy of a single flower petal or the understated blush of urban decay. And through our understanding of light temperatures and white balance, we align closely with Pantone benchmarks to maintain color integrity from lens to screen.
Layer by layer, a photograph builds. First with the natural world, then the camera’s sensor, and finally through our post-processing choices. These layers are not just technical. They’re emotive. The warmth added to a portrait or the cool cast over a moody landscape is a subtle nod to the inner language of Pantone—a guidebook for the heart that helps us communicate a scene’s atmosphere without speaking a word.
As artists behind the lens, we often find ourselves searching—looking for the delicate play of light on skin, hues that dance in shadows, or reflections that mirror unspoken truths. We trust our optics, but we follow our instincts. And more often than not, it’s a color, that elusive Pantone swatch buried in the ether, that draws us to press the shutter.
Whether shooting on film or digital, wide-angle or macro, what remains constant is the desire to represent what we feel as deeply as what we see. It’s the intentional composition of color layers that transforms static scenes into visceral memories. It’s in these layers—both visible and invisible—that we find our voice through photography.