Photo and Pictures

Written By: Mattias W

One of the most important things when creating images is to associate itself with some questions. Stop and think before you snap. Try, experiment, make it slightly different and see if it gets better. Here are some tips on details that you may have in mind when you are out shooting, or maybe when you are out drawing.

Direction
Direction is something we learned from our experiences. Apart from the perspective characteristics – something that is little on a distance appear large when it is close – so we have learned to read in a certain direction. A Westerner literacy begins to look at a picture from the left corner down toward the bottom right corner. The same way he would read. A person from the eastern part of the world, however, begins like to see in the image on the right because that is how he learned to read.

Look at the lines in the pictures, they illustrate the direction depending on where you start to see. Starts the lines near and disappear away, or do they start far away and is approaching?

Photo: Sara Berlekom

Tip:
The direction does not need to be clear lines like here, it may occur through various forms of creating “invisible lines”. It can also be many directions in an image as part of the composition.

Think about what the viewer should see first – where are the first impression and attention?

Balance
With balance, I think a picture’s equilibrium. When we find a balance it is really depending on our sense of direction, which we use to keep track of the body’s location.

A solitary figure, and a vacuum. There is no balance, the fact is that the brain would rather not accept this – if it could, it would like to fill the void with a steady weight to offset the solitary figure. The desire to achieve equilibrium that is deeply rooted in us.

Two streamline shapes that occupy an equally large area of the image. In this picture there is balance, but it seems enough for most stiff and boring – and possibly irritating because in some ways is “locked”, this is nothing to interpret and there are few references to our sense of balance.

If we diminish one of the characters, we, as in this picture, imbalance. Imbalance is difficult to accept in an image, then something you prefer to avoid or exploit.

We are moving up the little figure so we begin to find balance again. Why? Because the size difference can now be read into that a difference in perspective, therefore, that the little figure is further away. This design also feels more interesting and vibrant, right?

How is the balance of the picture?

Operating
The elements of a picture can behave in a certain way towards each other. Direction, balance, proportions, and our interpretation of objects can make a motion. Motion may create tension in a composition, things are starting to feel more alive.

See the illustration with the two characters, some seem to be aggressive on the left and right subdued? (Now imagine what it would have been if the image would be flipped, and what forms could clarify movement even more).

Here are examples of how the direction can cause various movements. In the first picture with the ball would probably most illiterate Westerners say that the ball rolls in a descending direction, performs and are forward in the picture … while the other becomes a bit trickier, normal brain would like to interpret it as a stopping line, but because the balls will not roll upwards to perhaps chosen an interpretation in which the ball rolls back into the picture – maybe it has rolled up a piece of their own power, has reached its peak and is now on its way back again?

In the picture below, you can see our associations. We know that water moves to the left, we see that paddle voltage implies a movement, we can interpret the force which depresses the canoeist as bare hands and head are visible.

What happens if we look at it?

I hope now you start to ask questions about the composition when you take your next picture.

This entry was posted by Bengt on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm. It is filed under Photography and has these tags: composition, photo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.