Effective composition

[Bobtrips]

Scott, I really agree with you.  I spend time on a travel oriented photography site where people engage in a lot of constructive criticism, including editing and re-posting other's work.

Writing critiques and reading critiques written by other people have been very valuable to me.  

It's helped me to improve from being a very marginal photographer all the way to being an almost mediocre photographer.

[Howard Smith]

You should know the rules before you break them.  You don't know the reason you are breaking the rules otherwise.  Read Paul's letter to the Romans.

I submit that most sucessful photographers (artists) know the classics and the rules and the "whys" before they set out to break the rules.  Otherwise, the results are haphazard and seldom reproducable in a new way.  Most of us have taken the accidental "great" photo that compells our friends to tell us we should quit our jobs and become famous photographers.

[Ray]

Tension is nothing more than throwing otherwise good balance awry.

I must admit I don't find examples of how to design advertisements for "Bradley's Lawn Care" all that exciting, but I can see there are some good principles being taught here.

However, I could find no mention of tension resulting from exclusion. Seems to me, one can exclude something in a picture by two methods; cropping it out or covering it up. The former applies to Michael's shot of the dunes, the latter to the girl portrait. I wonder if Howard would feel the same way about that shot if the eye obscured by hair was instead a b r e a s t   . (Sorry if I seem crude. I'm really trying to maintain my usual high(?) intellectual standards.)

Of course, the striptease is the perfect example of tension being created by covering up something. The very successful fashion item, the bikini, also relies upon that technique.  

[Ray]

 It is moving against the grain of the rest of the image.

Do you mean by that, it's at a different angle, opposing angle, to the fallen section in the middle, or that it's not sharp as opposed to the rest of the image being sharp?

[Jonathan Wienke]

Just a note: I resized the house shot to 600 pixels, darkened the sky just a little, and moved the crop slightly to the left to shift the focus to the fallen porch roof a little more.

Comments?

[victoraberdeen]

Howard, you may be right, more right than you think. As there may be no absolute answer.

[Bobtrips]

And folks continue to use the word 'tension' as if it had been firmly defined, had real meaning in the context of photography.  

There are many definitions of 'tension'. After all, it's a pretty common word. Here is a couple, courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary, one from the field of art and the other from the field of Physics.

(1) The conflict created by interplay of the constituent elements of a work of art.

....

Yes, Ray, you found a string of words that purport to define tension.  But there is a lack of specificity that allows for common agreement as to when this property of 'tension' exists.

In the context of photography what is 'conflict'?  The listed definition of tension relies on another poorly defined word.

Show a group of people a series of photographs and some will find conflict, some won't.  Some will find tension, some won't.  

Just look back through the previous discussion.  

These terms are much too be subjective for anything more than creating discussions about how an individual is using the word.  They aren't specific enough for clear communication.

[Dan Sroka]

De gustibus non est disputandum.

[victoraberdeen]

Howard, I agree, knowing and understanding how you achieved the photo is a defining part of artistic style.

Exegeter Matrix...? dunno what you are refering to!

[Exegeter]

I looked up "design elements tension" on google.  This is the best that came up for our purposes here.

http://desktoppub.about.com/library/weekly...symmetrical.htm - multiple examples of different forms of tension in design.

Tension is nothing more than throwing otherwise good balance awry.

[Scott_H]

I wonder if the tree on the right could create some tension.  It is moving against the grain of the rest of the image.

[Ray]

And folks continue to use the word 'tension' as if it had been firmly defined, had real meaning in the context of photography.  

There are many definitions of 'tension'. After all, it's a pretty common word. Here is a couple, courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary, one from the field of art and the other from the field of Physics.

(1) The conflict created by interplay of the constituent elements of a work of art.

(2) A constrained condition of the particles of a body when subjected to forces acting in opposite directions away from each other, balanced by forces of cohesion holding them together.

As you can see, the two definitions are not entirely dissimilar.

[Ray]

The tree on the right does go from bottom right to top left, and the fallen bits do go from left to right, and everything is reversed if you flip the image horizantally. There's nothing perpendicular about the fallen bits. Are we confused about horizontal, perpendicular and 45 degrees?

[Howard Smith]

To answer your question, I don't know of any single source.  The notions I have  have gathered over a long time.  I can;t prove any thing or back up my opinions with references.  That is why I try to avoid saying I'm right and you're wrong, even if I think that.  I know what works for me and tr to share it.  But I am not saying what I say is fact.

As for colors, I was thinking in very broad terms.  Like why are stop signs red.  Warning signs are now coming in some sort of day glow yellow to attract attention.  I understand part of the reason is people see that color very well, and people have become jaded by red.