One of the most basic constraints on what makes a good photograph is the way our eye moves through an image. But how general are these constraints, what is the reason for them and, most importantly of all, can they be deliberately broken as a part of the creative process of composing a photograph?
Bryan Peterson, in his wondeful book Learning to See Creatively, suggests that it is somehow natural for the eye to ‘enter’ into a photograph from the left. While I don’t think this is natural to us so much as it is a learned convention, it is a convention I find it difficult to break.
One subject I enjoy is fences, and I’ve noticed that if I want to shoot the fence as a diagonal line, the line should indeed start at the left edge of the image, leading the eye naturally into the photograph.
Flipping the image around, the eye will bounce off the bokeh blur to the left, destroying the harmonic progression of the line through the image.
The only way I’ve found to break this convention is when there are figures of people involved. We will naturally consider people more interesting than other subjects, so the eye won’t bounce off in the same way if the bokeh blur at the left edge of the image contains bokeh people.
Why is my eye trained to read a photograph from right to left? Might it be connected to the conventions of writing and reading in general? Can it be that since we are used to reading from left to right, we also view photographs from left to right?
I suspect that conventions for viewing or composing visual art are correspondingly different in societies that use different writing systems, such as Chinese – traditionally read from top to bottom – or Arabic – from right to left. Consider for example Manga, Japanese comics, which are drawn to be read from right to left. This would make no sense if the direction from which we start reading an image is natural to everyone independent of the culture we’ve grown up in.
I would love to hear from you now, what photographic conventions are important to you in your work, and most importantly, which conventions do you deliberately flaunt as a part of your creative process?
All the best from Jenny.
How interesting. I appreciate how you are always teaching us new things and making us think, Jenny!
Aw, thanks Cara! I’m just thrilled to have a place to share my photography musings 🙂
As I was reading this post I was thinking about how your posts are always so unique and interesting Jenny. Then I saw Cara’s comment…looks like you’ve had the same effect on both of us (and I am sure many others). I’ll have to think about this one for a bit 🙂
Thank you 🙂 Let us know your thoughts at some point!
Great point and interesting post, Jenny! I agree that how we read an image can have cultural biases and is often influenced by how we learn to read a page of written text. I’ve also read that the orientation of the composition/frame influences how it is “read” – horizontal framing is read left to right, while vertical framing is read top to bottom. But, I feel that other compositional factors have very strong impacts on how our eye moves within the frame, such as size/scale of objects, value/tone arrangements, saturation/vibrancy of colors, leading lines, etc.
As for flaunting conventions, I like to experiment with balance…how far can a subject sit off to one side and look balanced? Can a composition be divided in half and still look interesting? Can a small subject with a lot of negative space still be inviting? Things like that.
Thanks for the perspectives you bring to MM, Jenny!
Thank you for an interesting comment, Anna!
Of course there are a lot of other factors influencing the path of our eye through the image. I’m always struggling to become deliberately aware of what these are – that’s the best way to move forward in our work I think.
I love the idea of experimenting with different types of compositional balance. I’m a bit scared of breaking the rule of thirds and dividing the composition in half, so maybe that’s exactly what I should be doing 🙂 A small subject with lots of negative space, on the other hand, I think can look fabulous.
i love this post jenny…when i look at my work, i often see that i take advantage of this natural inclination! and i’m with the ladies up there…i love seeing what you’re going to write about next! i think the cultural aspects of our language definitely holds some weight here, but i also agree with anna about composition too. i wonder how one affects the other and vice versa as things have developed over time.
btw, In advertising, they intentionally put the offer in the top right hand corner for this very reason! because our eye will go from left to right and settle up there in the corner!
I didn’t know that point about advertising. A bit scary how they use those kind of tricks to catch the interest of our subconscious really!
Interesting thoughts, Jenny. I have been taking a composition class on Skillshare.com (beginner class, but I’ve gotten a lot out of it!), and it’s been interesting for me to see how much I have been going on gut, which has often but not always worked for me, and yet those gut feelings are actually definable by “rules” of composition that artists have been using for hundreds of years. These rules make a lot of sense, but it’s also interesting to see how one can add tension to a photo just by breaking them.
Oh, exactly! It’s so important and a constant struggle for me to become aware of what that gut feeling tells me, so I can use or break the rules deliberately.
What a fascinating post, Jenny! I see from my fence pictures that I shot them any which way although I suspect it would have been useful to know the ground rules beforehand! Thank you, as ever, for showing me new things!
Useful to know the ground rules, not least so they can be broken 🙂 I’ve had people complementing the composition on fence shots where the fence starts at the right edge, so this is certainly not cut in stone!