Pictures with just a few related colors are called limited palette pictures. They stand in stark contrast to photographs with many colors due to their subtlety. The color doesn’t hammer at you but is more relaxing to look at than a picture with many vivid colors.

This picture made at the top of a waterfall in the Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada and has only the colors white, gray, blue and black. The gray color is the reflection of major storm clouds. The blue and white are blue sky and white cloud reflections.

These colors are considered “cool.” Other pictures often include sets of related colors but limited in their range such as earth tones, which are considered “warm” colors.

Sometimes by careful composition, you can select the content in your frame such that you have a limited palette picture.