On Balance II

Discussions on balance in regards to photographic composition seem to be superficial at best to me. There are good reasons for this among the vast majority of photographers but if you want to distinguish yourself you have to go the extra mile and get down into the nuanced details and understand composition at a whole new level.

Consider that painters sometimes take years to determine their compositions of which balance is an essential part. They'll make a sketch of the crucial elements and they'll contemplate it for a while and then develop another sketch and contemplate that one for a period and on and on and on until they come to a solid conclusion about the message they want to send. Granted, photography can be thought of as completely different in this respect but it's really only a different point of view of the same coin.

Most photographers think 20 minutes for a given scene is an extravagant expenditure. And we develop and hold on to simplified "Rules" to deal with compositions on the fly. And with the advent of digital photography many have the attitude of just shoot lots of shots until you get what you want. A manner of operating that makes me think of the "Infinite Monkey Theorem" on a whole new level (both creatively and evolutionarily).

Add to that photography genres that require an unbalanced composition and it's no wonder that so few know what to do about composition let alone divide it into elements like balance, form, color, etc!

By far the easiest and most taught way to make balance simple is by isolating the elements down to one or two and finding a state of equilibrium. And we typically lean toward symmetry in compositions of this type.

Of course balance does not require symmetry – just a state of distribution in which all elements stabilize each other.

But what are the things we need to be aware of when it comes to evaluating balance? How does our eye react to the scene in front of us?

Below are some elements of balance and how we generally react to those elements:

• Size – surprise, surprise, larger objects appear visually heavier than smaller ones
• Shape – Regularly shaped objects appear to have more weight than irregularly shaped objects
• Form/Space – Positive forms weigh more than negative space
• Isolation – Isolated objects appear heavier than those surrounded by other elements
• Density – A given space will have more weight when more elements are in that space
• Color – Red is the heaviest color and yellow is the lightest. Generally, warmer colors appear heavier than cooler ones
• Brightness – Darker objects have more weight than brighter ones. The higher the contrast between subject and background, the heavier the subject will seem
• Inherent Interest – Objects of a complex or peculiar shape appear heavier
• Texture – Complex textures are heavier than simple textures which are heavier than no texture at all
• Volume – 3D volumes have more visual weight than 2D volumes
• Depth – The greater the depth of field, the greater the visual weight
• Perceived physical weight – An element that looks like lead will appear heavier than an element that looks like a feather
• Location – Given the same object (size, shape, color, etc), it will appear heavier in the upper part of the composition than the lower part; heavier on the right side of the composition than the left; the weight of an object increases as its distance from the center is increased; a small object near the edge can counterbalance a larger object near the center

One of the problems with the above list is it has the tendency to suggest geometric (man-made) shapes which are rare occurrences in nature. And one of the first adjustments we have to make is to recognize the general shapes in nature in the context of man-made shapes; apples are generally round, some people have rectangular faces, etc. This is the first step in understanding the internal structure of objects and how they affect our precept.

More on that next week.