Basic Principles of Design

I was reading this book by Bryan Peterson called Learning to See Creatively. Did I mention Bryan is one of my favorite author on photography? I love reading his books because they are filled with photos and examples with very short paragraphs per chapter. His books are not overly technical and he puts a lot of notes and stories under the sample photos he includes in his books.

Anyway, there was this part in the book called "Mastering the Basic Principles of Design" which teaches you how to expand your vision. It also helps you find out about your inner psyche, your likes and dislikes.

He says to take 80 of your photos with no people in them. If you have no photos with no people, take 80 photos with people in them.

On a sheet of paper, make six columns and write these words on top of each column. Line, shape, form, texture, pattern and color.

Now look at each of your photos critically and mark each column on what you see in your photo. If you see a lot of lines, put a mark under the "line" column and so on until you finish your photos. From there, you will see what your strengths and your weakness.

Do you shoot a lot of texture? Not enough colors in your photos? If you see a column with very little marks, make it a point to go out next time and shoot only that. If you are weak in color, go out and shoot just colors. Don't worry about the composition or the subject, just find something that shouts color to you.

Bryan Peterson mentioned that when he started in 1988, he found out he shot a lot of lines and patterns with very little marks in other columns. Now, his columns are pretty even.

I used to shoot a lot of lines and patterns as well. Whenever I see a tree lined road or a fence, I'd shoot it. Now, I look for colors since I am working on the color aspect of my photography. Then I move in closer and I find texture as well. Take a look of some of my older photos. These were taken before I read Bryan Peterson's book Understanding Exposure and before I learned about Ken Rockwell who said he shoots "color".

What drew me to take this photo is the line of the two tree trunks on the ground. It was pointing towards the line of trees in the background.

The line of trees overhead and the reflection on the water makes strong vertical lines. That was the attraction to me.

Again, a line of trees, but I put in some negative space of the snow on the ground.

The texture and the reflection of the trees on the water and the rocks underwater was interesting to me. But I guess unconsciously, the line of the trees was still the factor that attracted me to take this photo.

While all these examples are of trees, I have a couple of pictures of fences, sea walls and other parallel lines and textures I took photos off.

Then I read Ken Rockwell's blog that he shoots colors and Bryan Peterson's book on exposure. I changed the subjects that I started shooting.

Here are more recent photos I took.

Before, I would have stepped back and taken a photo of the whole fire hydrant. Since I wanted to emphasize the color and texture, I went in close and did a macro shot of the green moss and the red paint.

While there are still lines on this photo, the main thing you notice is the mix of red, white and blue.
Here, the emphasis is the green of the grass, the blue of the sky and a small yellow line.

Notice how different my photos are from one another after I consciously changed the subject matter I wanted to emphasize? The photos of the forest was taken around August 2008. The snow photos was taken March of 2009.

The photos of the fire hydrant to the soccer field was taken from May to June 2009. See what how fast you can change your views if you consciously do it?

Try it with your photos. You might be taking too much of the same subjects unconsciously. Try shooting colors or textures or forms like silhouettes. It might just be what brings your photos to life.

You can see more of my photos on my Flickr page.