From the course: Photography Foundations: Composition

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Balance

Balance

From the course: Photography Foundations: Composition

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Balance

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Well now, this is real pretty, isn't it? We've got the mountain. We've got the sky. We've got the beautiful green meadow. At the same time there is just something not quite right about this image. It's just out of whack somehow. It feels just a little off. I mean like a simple suggestion here. If we just put me right here, ah! The image is better now. It's not better because it's me; it's better because now the image is balanced. Elements in your frame have compositional weight. I don't mean literal physical weight, although sometimes that does correspond, but they have graphical weight. If you think of your images having kind of a fulcrum, then in this case the mountain on one side tilts the balance off. When you put another strong graphical element here, in this case me, the element, or the image, comes back into balance. They are equally weighted. Balance is a somewhat ephemeral slippery compositional idea, but it's the one that you will be--one of the things you'll be worrying…

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