If you keep your eyes peeled while walking through a natural landscape, you will be richly rewarded with a vast diversity of shapes. Any materials that you might need to build fascinating and exciting pictures are readily available in the natural world. These pages reveal different types of trees that distinguish themselves due to their shapes.
The gnarled olive tree with its horizontal branches (top-left) establishes a marked contrast with the narrow, erect trunk standing nearby. The hood-like snowy fir similarly builds a dramatic contrast with the delicate young beech tree next to it (right). The trunk of the willow in the town of Ladenburg on the Neckar River (right-hand page) looks like a sinewy torso in comparison with the hoarfrost-coated trees flanking it on both sides.
A harmonious photograph can result from the combination of opposites. This statement sounds contradictory, but it is not. A photo is not like a scale that can be balanced only when both sides are at the same height. Decorum in a photograph can be the result of the coexistence of various elements that differ from each other in width, length, shape, orientation, texture, spacing, or brightness.
Juxtaposed visual areas that correspond to the golden ratio tend to create a harmonious effect for viewers. A rough guideline for comparison’s sake is 2:3. If you want to play it safe with your compositions, stick to this universal principle of division. Using the grid feature on your camera’s display will give you options when composing the relative area sizes in your pictures. However, it’s worthwhile to try out contrasts that purposefully deviate from the golden ratio and the classical design principles that stem from this standard.
Contrasts emerge not only from the opposition of similar or similarly shaped objects. The dark boulder that the shrinking Aletsch Glacier deposited on a rock face does in fact create a contrast, but the opposition is not particularly exciting (left). The overall effect of the photograph showing the granite boulders in the north of Sardinia, however, is completely different (right-hand page). The contrast here is not only built through shapes—the opposition also builds a striking substantive contrast between the bizarre animal-like rock formation and the diminutive figure of the woman.
Tip
Keep an eye out for pairs of subjects that differ strikingly from one another and then devise compositions that underscore their visual differences. Some possible options include positioning the contrasting elements diagonally opposite from one another, cropping them in an innovative way, revealing dramatic differences in their surfaces, or playing up varying degrees of brightness.
This photograph of the New National Gallery in Berlin presents virtually every example of establishing visual tension through contrasting shapes: round/cornered; pointed/dull; large/small; high/low; more/less; light/dark; straight/bent; horizontal/vertical; narrow/broad; hard/soft; and thick/thin (top).
While the photo in Berlin is teeming with various elements that have different shapes, the picture of the airstream in front of the New York Public Library is focused on fewer shapes. The contrast between the trailer and the regular dividing lines in the architectural façade behind it is the main attraction of the image (right-hand page).
Circular shapes command a particularly high level of attention when surrounded by shapes with right angles. Just like eyes, circles have a special effect in the graphic arts. When a circle is cropped at the edge of an image, a viewer naturally completes the shape in his or her imagination. A viewer is compelled to follow the entirety of the ring with their gaze. Curved or arched elements also have a very strong effect, as demonstrated here by the photos of segments of the dome atop the Reichstag in Berlin (bottom-right), the view from the roof of the Academy of Arts at Pariser Platz in Berlin (bottom-left), and the curved rows of benches in the spa gardens of Bad Reichenhall (top). The image of stretches of highway in Mannheim reveals the effect of circles spinning into or out of the image area (right-hand page). The photographs on the next pages were taken in the House of Astronomy in Heidelberg (page 110) and the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart (page 111).
When a complete circle is captured within the image area, it acts as a solid anchor point. If a circle causes a viewer to associate it with a human eye, then the shape commands his or her attention unwaveringly.
It is not easy to photograph flowers in a way that is not quintessentially common. I discovered this glassy blossom on a rain-soaked meadow in Liguria that reminded me of a wheel of little spatulas (top).
It’s hard to believe, but the image of the dandelion (right-hand page) is not a photograph. It was created on a simple scanner! Walter Spagerer, a photographic artist from Mannheim, has used sophisticated technology to develop an aesthetic that is highly difficult to achieve with the optics of a camera. And this is to say nothing of the impressive depth of field that one normally would not expect from a commercial scanner.
People have a penchant for uniformity. Neatly spaced sequences can be found at every corner. Our cultural landscape is decorated with static shapes. Lined-up, repeating objects are attractive attention-grabbers when documented within the rectangular area of an image: manicured vineyards, densely planted trees along an avenue, evenly spaced streetlamps, tidy rows of beach chairs, and a parade of mannequins are examples of this concept.
An optical disruption is sometimes needed to break up the monotony of repeating forms. Under the arcade on the Place des Vosges in Paris, a woman disrupts the otherwise steady line of the columns (left). Layering and cropping disrupt the uniformity of the display-window mannequins (top).
An image that departs from the comfort of uniformity can also create an interesting effect; for example, the photo of a walkway in Venice is an example of how a crowd of pedestrians, all heading in different directions, can seem dynamic (right-hand page).
