Basic Photography Composition | Balancing Elements in Photography
© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Harmony With Nature | My Wife and My Son | Kuala Lumpur Bird Park Malaysia
Among the most talk about when it comes to photography composition is “The Rule of Thirds” or in simple words is to place your main subject off-centre whether you put your subject close to the right or close to the left but not in the centre of the frame, and in photography we refer that kind of composition as “The Rule of Thirds”. It is not really a rules but more about “guide”, something that we refer to make our composition much more pleasing or aesthetic to our eyes.
But there is something that most people less talk about which is “balancing elements” in photography. Like I said previously, a rules in photography is just a guide, it is not something that you must follow blindly, but you must understand why the so called rules does work and why most photographers like to stick with the rules.
Ok now, let’s talk about “balance” here, usually when we compose our picture according to the rules of thirds, most of the times we tend to leave the other side of the frame empty, left in void. When that happen, the photograph will look “unbalanced” when we put more “weight” on the left or on the right of the frame. Depending on your intention, sometimes it works and sometimes it may look awkward. Sometimes it is good to have an empty negative space when you want to put more emphasize to your main subject.
But in order to create more harmony or balance photograph we may try to put something to fills the void. To make our picture more balance so it is not weighted more either to one side of the frame but more balance. Take a look at the picture above, I did purposely compose the picture so that I can included the fish on the pond in the frame to create balanced in my photograph, I did wait for a few minutes until the fish gather around to the left side of the frame. The reason is that, I want to create more balance photograph, and it helps also that the colors of the fish in the pond is harmonious with the colors of my wife clothes.
This photograph also have “contrast”, not in term of colors but more about the contrast in nature or “situation” where you can see that my son Raphael is crying, making some noise while at the same time, the fish in the pond is calm by nature, peaceful by nature. It may create tension but the fish in the pond helps to balance the situation, when I see this pond which is located inside Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, I know that it will make beautiful balance photograph for my family.
Hopefully by now, you should be able to create well balance photograph in the future, it is not something that each and everyone must follow but it is good if we have some better understanding how to balance our photograph when we composed our pictures. A well balance photograph surely will be much more interesting to look at and it shows that you have put your mind or take the time to create a photograph rather that just take a snap shots.
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