Balance

I understand from this exercise that balance in a photograph can be achieved in many different ways whether it be by the placement or size of the subject or objects in it or by tone or colour etc. I looked at my photographs and some automatically "jumped out " at being being better balanced than other. As mentioned in the course it seemed much easier to find balance in photographs with a simple composition. The photos above I considered to be balanced in different ways and it was useful to sketch the weighing scales.

From reading further on the subject there seems to be varying methods of achieving balance in the composition of photos.

One being how the elements of an image are divided by vertical or horizontal axis.

Another being symmetrical balance i.e. two objects of equal weight are positioned on either side of the vertical dividing line.

The most interesting is using asymmetrical balance. This works on the premise that objects have their own "mass" whether it's size, colour, tone, in focus etc. A well balanced photograph would have the different elements in it arranged in such a way that their "mass or weight" is balanced. One example of the weight of a component in a photogrpah is that objects in focus take precendence over out-of-focus objects.