Mirror elements

January 19, 2020  •  Leave a Comment

Nature seems rather random in terms of where what grows, flows, or is placed from a compositional perspective. So when we find a scene that seems to look a bit more orderly we are amazed and we just want to photograph it. Sometimes we need to create that order. Order can be created by lining things up, by duplicating elements, by bringing out the similarity. Let's look at an example.

The grasses in the foreground are on both sides with a gap in the middle which mirrors the mountains in the background. The two gaps are lined up deliberately to create the mirroring effect. You will be surprised at what a big difference a step to the left or to the right makes in terms of lining things up. Work the scene to make sure the elements are lined up and mirroring each other.

          We need to think compositionally. It is our job to try to create balance, order, and to get the elements in a scene to work together (unless the purpose of the image is to show chaos). Here is the same scene composed differently:

The same idea applies. We just stepped back a bit and added some height. The effect of what we did here is that the viewer's eyes move through the gap to the gap in the mountains in the background. This is what we want. We want the viewer to be invited to look into the scene, to move from front to back.

          Try to look for this kind of thing. Mirror elements. Arrange things in such a way to beckon the viewer into the image.


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