In addition to lines, there are other techniques that tend to catch the eye of every one of us. What I mean by trick the brain is that we are preprogrammed to notice certain things, and by controlling where your viewer looks, it will ensure a more universally pleasing reaction to all of your images if you learn to implement these key points.
The most basic of these is human faces. No rocket science here, we are naturally drawn to faces. We look at the faces of other people all day long from the day we are born. I’m not very privy to the science behind this, maybe it’s about a need to remember those we meet, and their face is their main ID, or for attraction/reproduction purposes I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I do know that we are quick to recognize and view the human face with great scrutiny because of its familiarity. It shouldn’t be too hard to find these in the wild.
The second on this list of eye catchers is not always as obvious. Patterns. Not much of a need for explanation here, a pattern is simply a shape, that repeats. It is happening organically in the plant above, and it is happening in the manufactured stadium seating on the next page.
The challenge with patterns is that they may be so obvious that they can be overlooked quite easily. Imagine the last time you were at a stadium, did you walk past a section of empty seats and say, look at the pattern! Probably not, and neither did I. The pattern can be objects so commonplace that they don’t seem visually interesting or relevant.
Think of a brick wall. It may not thrill you, but it’s got pattern. Look around you right now, is there a window with blinds or shutters? That’s a pattern. Is there a tile floor? That’s a pattern. Patterns are everywhere and we see them so frequently they don’t jump out at us.
It seems a little counterintuitive that I’m talking about potentially boring and redundant visual elements in a section devoted to things that catch the eye, but that’s exactly why they do. When you photograph something commonplace, it forces a viewer to look at something they pass by quite frequently. There is interest in being prompted to look at something you see every day in a new way, or from a new perspective. Also, a well plotted break in the pattern has a lot of gravitational pull as far as the viewer’s eye is concerned.
The next, also fairly straightforward technique is called framing. Framing happens when you use a shape to surround, or frame, your subject. Usually the shape is a simple shape like a triangle, square, rectangle, or circle although it doesn’t have to be any of those. More or less, the subject appears to be viewed “in” or “through” something else, like a window.
Framing is not commonplace like pattern is, and that is why it works. We subconsciously recognize that some premeditation or planning went into making a shot happen, and that is motivating enough to build interest.
An example of framing is seen below. Our attention is hardly concerned at first with the tunnel-like object we are looking through, we are drawn to the man immediately. Actually, you get a two-fer here: this image plays on our tendency to locate faces and be drawn to a well-framed subject.
The third eye-catcher is almost as common as pattern, but can have a bigger impact, in my opinion. Reflection.
Reflection has the same result as framing: it is instantly clear some thought went into this composition. See above.
Reflection can be seen anywhere, but it works best when you see one in an unexpected place. Imagine a reflection in a shallow puddle. Does it have the same effect if it were a mirror? I don’t believe so, because we expect a mirror to reflect, but we don’t expect pavement to do it so well. Reflections on the ground level are also is a little spatially confusing, which makes a viewer look twice; the eye stays a while trying to figure it out.
These are all great tips, some of which can be used in tandem, others not so easily. Used in conjunction with leading lines (look at the example of framing once more! See them?), these are compositional steroids that will take your images from compositionally simple to more complex and it will give your viewers’ eyes something to linger on that has great interest.
The use of space is also an eye catching tool.
Thus far in our treatment of composition, we’ve been devoted to the subject – where all the things are put in a frame before the shutter release button is pressed and the picture is taken. The space where the subjects are is called the positive space.
As important as where all the objects are, is where they aren’t. The space that surrounds the subjects can have an impact on where the viewer’s eye goes as well.
The type of space seen below is called negative space. Negative space is space between or around other objects in an image. We usually classify negative space as such when it is so prominent or recognizable that it competes with the positive space or subject(s) for attention.
Looking at the image above, we see the four concrete-looking squared pillars. When I look at this image, my eye doesn’t go to the pillars first, it goes to the center. Inevitably, I look around and see the pillars, but am ultimately more drawn to the cross shape that the backdrop of clouds makes in the pillars’ absence. As a side note, if you can imagine the tic tac toe board drawn over the top of it, you’ll notice that this image is virtually a diagram of the rule of thirds.
The next type of space, seen below, is called active space. Active space describes the space that a moving, or potentially moving subject is pointed toward. This is mostly considered present when the subject is a person or animal. Active space is the area that the subject is looking or theoretically moving into.
Imagine the photo below composed differently. Instead of the girl looking into the active space in front of her, picture her nose very close to the left edge of the image and nothing but field behind her. What incentive would there be to look into the field? She doesn’t seem to have any interest in it, and as a result, we wouldn’t feel any fascination with it either. It speaks more toward her future if she’s looking into the frame, and more to her past if she is looking away from it.
That hypothetical brings us to our third kind of space. The space we imagined, as well as the space behind the plane above, is called dead space.
I’m sure the cool jet of fire (called a shock diamond or a mach diamond) coming out of the back of the plane is the reason for the composition, but this image has an awful lot of dead space with the pilot and nose of the plane beyond that first third line.
As a result of the amount of dead space, we are left with no context about where this plane is going or what it’s doing. Is this a war photo? An air show? We just don’t know, and that leaves our interaction with the photo a little flat; there’s little room (literally) for imagination.
Space is a little different than the other compositional elements because we’ve made a bit of a transition away from techniques that are solely about where the eye is directed. Space can certainly have that impact, but there is also an element of storytelling that happens, particularly with the use of active space.
There will be a post devoted to storytelling some time later, but it is probably worth noting that I think the creative use of space are the seeds of storytelling.
Really, space is about communicating relationships; the balance between where things are, where they aren’t, and where they’re going. Each of these variables has an impact on how we interact with an image, and if our response to it is comfortable, uncomfortable, enjoyable, etc.
Space isn’t always the first compositional element that photographers consider, but it certainly is an important one, especially because its strength lies in contrast, which is conveniently our next topic!
With composition in general, the concept of contrast is one that always adds interest to photographs. Contrast is a term that might be used in editing, where it is usually describing how intense or prominent blacks and whites are (as opposed to grays, which are a midpoint of black and white).
In composition, the idea of contrast is not about pixels and color relationships, but opposites. Simply put, we only say something is light because darkness exists around it. If you were walking on the surface of the sun (work with me, here) and you were wielding a flashlight, its brightness would hardly impress you. In fact, it might be the darkest thing around. If you were walking on the dark side of the moon, a flashlight would seem epically bright.
C.S. Lewis wrote about this concept in one of my favorite books. He writes: “If there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
He is getting at something more intentionally existential than I am, but the principles are the same. Many times, it is an opposite that allows us to define things we observe.
Check out the swimming man below; he is an excellent example of contrast. Why do we look at him immediately? He practically jumps off of the image because of a number of contrasts that exist. I’m going to point out six basic examples of contrast you can look for to enhance your composition, and he strongly exemplifies all but one. I’ll circle back to him at the end.
The first of these examples is the one I used already, the contrast of dark and light. A dark object on a light background or a light object on a dark background would be described as high contrast, and high contrast will draw attention more than low contrast, or light on light and dark on dark.
Colors can contrast, too. A later post will dig deeper into color theory, but for now, let’s break colors into two groups: warm and cool. The most literally elementary definition of these is: warm colors are the top half of the rainbow and cools the bottom half. Warm and cool, for one example, can be used to bring contrast of colors.
Sharpness and the lack thereof is a way to add contrast as well. Think back to depth of field, and how it can produce a smooth, focus-less bokeh. Something sharp appears sharper on a background that is out of focus and as a result, draws the eye even more.
Similar to contrast in focus or sharpness, objects that are recognizable draw attention far more strongly than objects that are unrecognizable. Something that is very out of focus may be entirely unrecognizable, and thus less attractive to the eye. The reason an object is unrecognizable is not limited to just focus, the principle is true regardless of why it is unrecognizable.
Patterns come back into the picture here as well. If a distinct object appears surrounded by pattern, your brain will stop paying attention to the pattern and identify the anomaly. Think back to the example of symmetry I used in an earlier post. The cat is what moves the eye, the cat is the contrast because the windows are a pattern. Similarly, we have no trouble locating the head of a peacock amidst a fan of its feathers. Not to mention the mess of leading lines that point you to it, the pattern of feathers are appealing at first, but the contrast, that is, the break in the pattern, is what our eye ultimately moves toward.
The same applies to size. We say a kayak is a small boat because we know yachts and ocean-liners exist. There are boats that fit one, there are boats that fit over 5,000. The boat that fits one is small by contrast, even if it’s 20 feet long.
Now briefly consider these principles and the swimming man at the outset. He is light on dark background (the water, mountains, and sky), he is a warm color on a cool background (again, all three elements), he is sharp over an out of focus background (look at his arm and hand), he is a recognizable shape and the water is amorphous, and finally, the gentle waves are a kind of pattern and he, a stark break in it. All those types of contrast come together to make our eyes comfortable resting on the swimming man.
These aren’t the only kinds of contrast , but it should be enough to get you in the habit of looking at how we are trained to define things – often by opposites – and prompt you to see contrasts in your every day life.
Speaking of contrast, Light & Shadow: Quality over quantity would be a great next read.
**If you’re interested in treating these posts as a self-study with assignments, you can get our Assignment Series 1 question pack to help you learn these ideas through real, targeted, hands-on practice. The Assignment Series 1 question pack is included with enrollment in our beginner’s course.**
