Another gel test. To be honest my strobes and speedlights are a mix of brands as I meander around with my studio lighting purchases. This time I was testing a gel system specifically made for two of my strobes. This means I now have gels for my speed lights and my strobes, which means I can now put different colors everywhere. My subject requested pink, so I set up a green in back to act as a complimentary color. We went with a low-key lighting setup. Just two lights, one back light and one bare strobe with a pink gel.
Understanding color theory isn’t mandatory, but it doesn’t hurt either. Plus, it gives you another way to view and discuss art. This is important because if you can understand what art works for you and you understand why it works for you, you can start going in that direction with the art you create. Or, more likely, if you can figure out what doesn’t work for you and why, you can avoid that. Understanding color theory, even a little bit, helps in that.
That stated, treat it like every other photography “rule”. Green isn’t an exact complimentary color to pink. Lime green would be. The rules and theories are there to give art creation direction, but it should never dictate it – the areas where you turn against the rules and theories are where you imprint yourself and your ideas into your work, which is the most important part of creating art.
Finally, the good thing about low-key lighting with gels is that you can convert it to grayscale and get awesome results. So if for some reason you go too far with your gels, you can always fall back with that.