Composition and the Impact on Human Vision

Composition, a very theoretical beast, and boring, or is it?
Composition of an image can also be the power to determine the behavior of audience. In the movies, that happens all the times.
Here is a study of a photo I was lucky enough to shoot today.
Have a look:

Trees 'n Moon

I guess, you are not sure what to think of say about about this. And there are reasons for this!

First, I would like to go into the technicalities of the photo. 
This was shot at low sun, with a Panasonic Lumix LX7, with a polariser, as a -3/0/+3 Ev HDR at f/4.
Maybe HDR was not necessary, but, I did it anyway... Since the wind was blowing hard, moving the clouds and shaking the trees, so I had to use a lot anti-ghosting, so much of the image is just the 0 Ev frame anyway.
There was no cropping involved in post processing!

Composition and why this image is so tense.

First "problem", actually I waited for this, is the divided frame. Left and right, clearly different, right through the middle. That is very disturbing!

The moon is placed in the upper right thirds, that attracts the eye. However, the entire rest of the right side is negative space!

The trees are placed in the lower third, ending in the lower thirds, opposing the moon. This creates a tension between the the two.

And now to the most disturbing element of this photo, the element that actually does the trick, the clouds... dominating the entire image and the left half of the frame.


This is pure hardcore composition... which most wont find appealing in an image...
Why?
Ask yourself: Where to look first? Where to look at anyway?!
Irritating, isn't it?
 
Ahh, I love photography!

Explanation of the dilemma:

=> Human vision is attracted to the brightest part, the highest contrast and structure.
 
Right, there is one place, in this image we are not attracted to, the lower right. Nothing going on here, just empty blue sky...


The moon sits in the upper right thirds, having high contrast makes it very prominent (rule of thirds). The moon also contrasts strongly to the blue sky.

But, at the upper left, the brightest spot in the image attracts our senses. Actually, the brightest spot quite on the edge of the frame, which is very disturbing. Some photographers would probably correct that by darkening the brightest part of the clouds.

Surviving the clouds, just to be caught by the tree's detail... detail and structure, that's what we really like too look at!
 
And there is our vision, jumping in a triangle not sure what to look at... the moon, the bright clouds, the trees, or the moon?!

As I said, I love photography.

And, btw, here is the same scene, a few seconds later, when the clouds were gone.

Moon n' Trees

Technically the same photo, although, this is the 0Ev frame only.

As I said before, there was no cropping in post, neither here, nor above.

And yes, I did some tricks in post production (GIMP) on the upper image, besides HDR, none of which I did to this photo.

Composition wise, this photo is also cut in half, but by a diagonal rather than a vertical as we see above. Now there seems a pointy relationship between the moon and the tree, which seems supported by the faint structure visible in the otherwise pretty dull sky.
In terms of eye-movement, you may find yourself looking from the trees to the moon, crossing the dark diagonal. Once arrived at the moon, which now is the brightest part in the picture, your vision will rest.

Yes, this second picture is in balance and creates some rest, but, is it as interesting as the other one?


I am sure my audience is divided as to which of the 2 photos is more appealing, but that was not the point of this post. The point was what composition can do to the observer!

ps:

I was too busy with the composition and stuff... so that I actually did not note myself that the clouds form a face, staring at the moon. A dear friend of mine pointed the face out to me...
And here we have another component, which draws the eye, faces, e.g. the man in the moon.
Isn't it wonderful how our human brain works... locking on whatever is familiar!
When editing the photo, I personally did not notice the face at all, since I was so focused on the general lines...

rules of thirds

Here's what I see in my image now:

looky looky ... a face is staring at the moon!

Now, let's have a look/analysis to/of the image without clouds:

no clouds!

The moon and the trees are essentially in the same position as in the image before. However, there is a very different imperative to the image now. First of all, the vertical division is gone, and so is the "face".
What is left is a moon casting a frame to the trees (green lines), causing a diagonal negative spave (red lines). Incidently, some clouds form arcuate patterns across the sky (blue lines), pulling the image into balance.

Thanks to Richard for pointing out additional visuals... As I said, I was so busy with the general lines, that I missed the face.

What Makes a Great Shot?

First of all, I would like to point out, that no really great shot is shown here, at least what my contributions is concerned.

Photography can be a form of art. It not always is, we are aware of that, however, sometimes it is.

A good photo is certainly defined by good framing, i.e. choice of scene, which is the artsy part of photography.
In addition to framing, the technical parts play a major role. Is my exposure right (ISO)? What about the depth of field (aperture)? Do I need motion blur (shutter speed)?

However, there is more to a good photo than the above mentioned aspects...

Art is often defined by its period... let's have a look at this great overview by Marco Marilungo (I hope I don't have to pay for linking his work into my blog):

History of Art by Marco Marilungo

Very obviously, the effect of the individual paintings is not only provided by the painting itself, but also the style (period) and the title given.

In photography, we can't really tweak the style. You photograph a building, very obviously this would be architectural photography - take an image of a scene in a busy market, that would be street photography ... etc. etc.

However, we photographers still have the title and maybe subtitle to set the mind of the viewer.

Let's have a look at a scene I shot today:

CRW_0388-1.jpg

Yep, the file was named CRW-0388-1.jpg... why is that? I shot in RAW (DNG) with CHDK, and it was the 388th image taken. Further, the "-1" means that I cropped the file in RawTherapee. Interesting, isn't it?! Dah!

Well, let's have a look at the same shot with a different caption:

Bridges between buildings

Does it make a difference? I hear you saying yes. This is somewhat descriptive and hence, we are still not telling a story, cf. "realism" above.

Now let's take this a step further and play with your imagination... (do you know Latin? if not, google is your friend). Same photo:

Qua vadis?

Due to the title (caption), the photo now tells a story! From which floor do I have to start to get on which floor of the other building?! Is there any way I can tell where a particular passage gets me to? What am I actually doing in such a building? Where is the restaurant at the end of the universe?!


Besides the psychological part of photography, there is another thing to add: choose a crop that works. The original of this photo was shot in RAW (DNG) at 4:3, which represents the sensor size. Fair enough. However, sometimes, the dimensions of your sensor just wont fit the scene in term of composition.
Have a look at the scaled and jpg converted original:

CRW_388.DNG (not really DNG, since scaled and converted)

See what the problem with this frame is? There is a cut off statue at the lower left corner, some red sign behind the pillars at the right lower corner... and this ugly purple thing in the lower portion right from the center... this all had to go.
Taking the focus on the upper part of the image: There is some really stupid looking rectangular thing on to of the building, which his has to go. Also, the sky, which was just cloudy, does not show any texture, and therefore needed to be minimized.
Further, to emphasis the stretch of the bridges, a wider format cam in handy. Hence, I went for a 16:9 image format for the final image.

Actually, when I took the shot, I already knew that I wanted to call in "quo vadis?". Sometimes such ideas come in handy... sometimes, the shot does not work out as hoped (this particular one worked out for me).
It may occur that the idea how to name a cool photograph comes in late. Take your time and imagination to think about a good title.
At the end, it is the title you give a photograph that influences the mind of the viewer.