Balance Your Composition
We are still working on the basic rules, so bear with me before we start getting too creative. Most of the time we don’t even think about balance. We stand on two feet, get out of the shower, walk up stairs…all of these things without giving balance a second thought. That is, until we lose our balance and panic sets in. It is easy to forget about balance in composing our photographs. Unlike our own balance, we might not realize what is going on that makes a composition feel just a bit uncomfortable. Frequently it is balance.
Balance helps to hold a composition together. It makes the viewer comfortable looking at it. The opposite would be imbalance. Imbalance can mean everything is too asymmetrical, but can also mean everything is too close to being symmetrical. It does not feel right. Just as you would want a picture placed correctly on a wall, or chairs placed properly around your living room, it is a good idea to have similar balance in your compositions. Balance does not mean the same amount of this or that on each side of an image, but it does mean compensating interests.
Lack of balance has a place in photography. It can be used for impact or drama or as a set of images that balance each other. We are looking at balance within a photograph. Balance starts with some of the guidelines we have covered so far…the golden ratio, light and colors with appropriate strength in the right places, sharp focus on the main subject, etc.
While a certain amount of symmetry may help balance, perfect symmetry is not what our eye looks for. To illustrate this point, look at what our eye sees every day…other people’s faces. We can likely all agree that the picture below on the left is a beautiful lady. Asymmetry is part of what makes this person beautiful. Notice that taking two left sides of her face or two right sides of her face leave us a bit uncomfortable with her appearance. Also notice that an asymmetrical hair style enhances her appearance, perhaps by balancing out the asymmetry of her face. Our view of the world, faces and photographs is influenced by our genetic predisposition to asymmetry.
We will be using shapes to illustrate what is pleasant in balancing a photograph. You may interpret these shapes as corresponding to subjects in your images, but the size and positioning also applies to areas of light and areas of saturation. These illustrations demonstrate how horizons affect our sense of balance. Except in the case of reflections, a horizon of equal height on the right and left that is not centered is our preference.
We will be using shapes to illustrate what is pleasant in balancing a photograph. You may interpret these shapes as corresponding to subjects in your images, or the "visual weight" of areas of an image.
Before reading the following paragraph, look at these three graphics and see how comfortable you feel with the visual weight in each graphic.
The left graphic clearly seems most unbalanced. there is both a greater amount of space and the slope exaggerates our feeling of sliding right out of the left side of the image. The center image feels fairly balanced and the diagonal line tends to hit the edges at a comfortable 1/3:2/3 ratio. Balance in an image like this will depend on additional factors such as light, color and any visual references we have (such as a horizon) that affect our sense of balance. The right image also feels reasonable, but if that was a horizon line it would look bad. Note also, that we are much more accustomed to seeing one-third of our image as sky and two-thirds as earth. If we reverse that ratio, we get more uncomfortable unless there is something that adds weight to the sky (fireworks, sunset, flock of birds, etc).
In my photo below left, several things may be disconcerting. The obvious slope moves our eyes (and would move our feet) to the left side of the image. It feels a lot like the first graphic above. The dark area on the upper right and the bright sky on the upper left also push us strongly left. The bright area in the upper left center attempts to save the image. While the lower right rock is very interesting, a better composition would have been to have the sky show at similar height on the right and left. This can be accomplished with cropping as shown on the right, but a longer lens length would have been the better choice, making the distant rock formation more in balance with foreground rock formation. Please click on the images to see the full sized images without the cropping this website design program forces me to use.
In these next graphics we are illustrating the relative weight of various subjects or object in our images and how they affect our sense of compositional balance. Note that while these are objects, the same affects can be attributed to areas of light or areas of saturate color. Before reading the following paragraph, study these three graphics and decide how you feel about their balance.
The first graphic has two flowers of the same size that are not symmetrical. They compete for attention. Had they been overlapping each other, they would have been seen a single object and much more pleasant to look at. The second graphic has two smaller flowers balancing the weight of the single larger flower. Their triangular pattern makes them a bit more appealing. The third graphic has three different flower shapes with the two smaller ones also balancing the larger one. This is the most appealing of the three graphics. Note that I picked three for illustration purposes, but we could have many more so long as there is a feeling of balanced weight of subjects, light or color.
When we provide multiple areas that grab our eye, whether due to a shape, light or color, we give the viewer more reason to stay in our photo. If these areas form their own triangles that seems to work very well. In this next image we have a natural triangle.
Balance Your Composition
Obviously shouldn't stifle our creativity too much with confining rules. But we can apply these rules to our compositions to make them stronger. It would not have worked to well to perfectly center the monolith in this image without surrounding it with the balancing bush on the left, the juniper on the right and the moon. Had any of our supporting cast members been identical in size and shape, the balance would have been thrown off.
A strong subject and its supporting cast are important to keep a viewer in your images. Light and color are part of that supporting cast. As stated above the position of light is very similar to the positioning of subjects. Our eyes tends move to the periphery of an image unless there are adequate areas to hold us in. Bright areas around the edges of a scene become distractions, making for an unbalanced image and taking the viewer away from the core of the image. Vignettes are an artificial way to keep the viewer in the image. I try to use them sparingly, instead favoring selective darkening of distracting elements and brightening of areas within the core of the image that will provide balance. Similarly, increasing saturation (or vibrance) can also add balance. My preference is to use this technique even more sparingly.
The light on the stream side cedars on the original image created an imbalance. To keep the viewer in the image I darkened the bough that move off the left center of the image and I brightened and increased the saturation of the distant area in the floor of the forest beyond the fallen log. The lighter colored trunks of the trees on the right side help to provide additional balance.
In most of our images we do not have just three subjects, areas of light or color that attract our eye. A useful exercise is to take your finished image and draw ellipses around those areas. Do the circles feel in balance?
The thickness of the ellipses corresponds to the weight carried by areas of the image. In this waterfall image, the large rock on the left carries too much weight.
This can be challenging if you shoot mostly as I do, without sunlight on your scene. But working on this can strengthen your images by improving your eye when in the field and by helping you make good post processing choices.
Can you see how I reworked the image to improve balance? As always, make your changes a little bit at a time making sure your supporting cast does not compete too much with your main subject.
1. Darkened left and right sides of large rock (making the rock less dominant)
2. Darkened rock above "V" falls to provide more separation of subjects
3. Brought up highlights in the water, including all the leaves and the reflection of the falls (this last part effectively made the falls more dominant)
4. Added a little light to the right side of the "V" falls (making falls more dominant)
5. Reduced light on upper right corner that takes viewer's eye out of image
A great exercise for those of you who have gotten this far is to go back and look at your own photographs or your favorite landscape paintings. How were subject placed? How was light used? How was color used? Try this on one of your images and see how it works for you!