Exercise 11

What: The brief of this exercise was go back and examine six photographs that I had previously taken and see if I could identify and document the “balance” elements in the
Where: At Home
When: Just before noon.
How: I decided to look back over some photographs I had taken previously, I finally selected 7 photographs I had taken as part of a one photograph a day project that I had completed 515 days of.

As I first looked over these photographs I found it quite hard to identify the simple elements showing how balance works in each of the photographs. I decided to draw over the photographs with a coloured box or line to identify an element. Once I had identified the elements I then drew a balance weighting scale showing what I thought the balance is.

1. Chair on Beach



I was able to identify the chair on the left and the block of rocks on the right as two elements. I coudl have also Identified the horizon as a line of balance too.



The weighting scale showing the balance.



2. Fly on Buttercup.


I identified the fly as the main element of the photograph. I then examined the blades of grass going off at odd angles out of the frame. I chose them as the elements for balance as they push outwards and due to the focal depth and the out of focus background they move the eye back to the flower and the fly.

Each of the blades of grass have equal weighting. This just leaves the fly and the flower in the middle of the screen as the main elements creating the final balance of the image.

3. Tree Highrise

At first I could only identify one main element of this image and that was the main body of the tree. After examing the image on the screen I then identified a small part of the tree which flows into the main element of the image. As these two elements were merged the balance is held together. The sky could also be identified as a third element on top of the other two.

Both elements together in the middle of the image create the balance of this image. I chose only to show these two elements as I felt with the sky that the balance was very top heavy.

4. Smoke Coils

The coils of smoke as they rise through the frame are repeating as they flow. The main elements of balance in this image are the coils themselves.

Each coil of smoke draws the eye upwards to the next, I could have just had the fours elements sitting on top of each other in the diagram, but I really wanted to show that the four elements together balance up each other.

5. Triangle light

This was quite a hard image to decide on where the balance was, as the abstractness of it makes it quite unusual. I had to really look at the image before I decided that the only elements in this image were the triangle of light and the small circle of light near the bottom right of the image. Once I had identfied the two elements, I drew the diagram showing that the larger triangle is balanced against the smaller brighter light. The

I chose to seperate the two elements in the weighting diagram to show that although the two elements are near each other that in fact they are seperate elements which make up the balance of the image.

6. Castle at Night.

This is quite a simple image, the castle is light up from below and between the dark night sky and the dark rocks below sits the castle. This image is made up from three elements, the two larger towers at either side of the frame and the longer block of light below them.

The two smaller elements together are balanced by the larger element which they merge into. This creates the balance between the three items.

7. Wet web.

I chose to select a seventh image, as I wanted to practice my examination and identification of balance. This was quite an easy one to do; the centre of the web is the main element and the strands of the web flowing out and away create the tension and balance of the image.

As the centre of the web is the main element is has the heaviest weighting, the smaller strands flowing away in all directions help to identify the main element and then balance it.

This has been quite a helpful exercise, as I had not previously examined my photographs for balance and this has shown that some of my compostions were "easier" on the eye than others.

I believe that the more balanced compositions were easier to look at, and that when I take photographs I should be examining what the balances are and if they help in the overall composition of the image.