Points: Positioning a point

Ok, first exercise of the second part of my course which is titled “Elements of Design”, in which I will be looking at the basic graphic design principles of photography; arrangement of tones and colours, abstraction, lines, points and implied shapes etc.

I have also decided that to help with picking out these abstract ideas it would be best to view all my photography in black and white so that shapes and implied directions are seen more clearly.

 

In this exercise I started to look at points within photographs. I took a series of 5 shots where there was a single point in each one and tried to decide on how its positioning affected the movement within the photo.

Points will always draw the eye very strongly to itself and so can make a very impressionable image. Depending on its position can also give a feel of slight movement if the point is closer to one edge of the frame. I have drawn grid lines on each shot to show how the frame is divided by its point to emphasise this division and show where the movement is coming from. Please click the photos to enlarge them.

 

In this first shot for example of a candle, the flame is the obvious point. I have positioned it a little higher off centre so that the tall nature of the glass is taken into account, but also so the flame is not dead in the centre and giving the picture a very static feel. The movement is up and down the tall glass as the point is furthest away from this edge of the frame.

i have noticed from my next few images that I seem to favour positioning a point naturally just a little way off centre. This helps in not creating very static images where the point will ‘puncture’ the frame, but I think that I could have done more by using the extremes and putting points right on the edges of the frame to create more dramatic images. For example the photograph of my self in the mirror could have had a greater effect had I positioned the shot so the mirror was in the upper left corner, causing the eye to flow from the right to left.

I think that as we read from left to right, any movement from the opposite direction causes tension in a scene as it is unnatural for the eyes to move in this way ( I think this is why they make the horrible stuff jump out at you from the right in horror movies!), and movement from left to right seems much easier to view and make an image feel less threatening. This will not be the case with all things as subject matter plays an important role in how a picture is perceived, but also the severity of the movement has to be implied too.

I found that points don’t often come around naturally and a lot of my photos for points will have to be staged as it were. I am hoping this will help me improve my still life and indoor photography some more.