If Your Photos Feel “Off”, This Is Probably Why - balance in photography - Simple Photography Tips

Nine simple photography tips on how to balance to a picture

• Bright backgrounds behind dark subjects (subject gets ignored)

• Too many competing points of interest

• Over-sharpening everything (nothing feels intentional)

• Distracting hotspots pulling attention away from the subject

• If your main subject is on the right, include a smaller or lighter element on the left to offset it. Could be a tree, cloud, light, or even a person.

• Use negative space on purpose Empty space balances weight just as much as objects do. Keep it intentional rather than accidental.

• Control brightness, avoiding bright patches in background or foreground, where they are away from the main subject.

• Guide the eye Use leading lines, repeated shapes, or light direction to connect

• Simplify If balance feels off. Subtract before you add.

  
  

In this article we continue with some of the images I took when on a recent photography trip to Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands belonging to Spain, giving suggestions on how to achieve balance in photography.

Beaches that are wall to wall sardines from various countries during the warmer parts of the day, return to their affinity with creation in the early hours of dawn.

The nearest beach to where we were staying was Cala Llombards, described by some as, relatively unknown by tourists, by others as one of the most popular tourist beaches.

Not having a close affinity for other humans when it comes to beaches, we responded to the call of early morning, and late evening, when the massed ranks are doing drinky things or snorey-things, rather than suffering a five centimetre gap with the stranger beside,me in the more popular hours of the day.

The result was a gentle light on the buildings tucked away on the sides of the inlet, where the fishermen keep their stuff.

Because the sun had yet to rise and kiss the shore, the light was a little flat, and the sea lacked the intensity of turquoise of later.

As usual, let's look at some images I took, and discuss. In this case I'm going to chat about adding balance.

Image One - Boathouses on shoreline, above horizontal centre of image

If we look at Image One, the scene is lovely, but everything is tucked into the top half of the frame. Options would be to change the angle and drop the huts lower.

Problem with that is, the sea is one of the important bits.

Had the sun been up it would have been better, but then there would have been a trail of 'swimmy - clad people ' walking in front of the huts.

Image Two - Woman wading, with intruding rock and gentle surf add balance to image on right.

Image Two occurred a few minutes later. I was taking images of the water and the rocks below the waves, when a woman came to bathe.

I am always aware of the 'dangers' of photographing strangers, especially skimpily clad, but her back was towards me, and she was just 'taking in the day' as was I.

What she immediately did however, was invade the lower half of the scene, and provide a balance to the picture.

Her walking into the water set up wavelets counter to those coming into the inlet, which added more character and visual weight to the lower part fo the image.

The direction of her head suggests her gaze was towards the fishing huts - the focus of my images.

The result is that rather than being the subject of the image, she highlights the subject, and balances the image.

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Image Three - Person wading adds balance to image in centre

Image Three, a variation on the theme has the person in the centre of the image.

Because she is in the centre, she tends to be more of a 'subject' than a balance, although the direction of her gaze does lead again to the huts, and redresses the balance issue.

Image Four - Bather adds balance to image from left intersecting third

Image Four. Again including the bather.

This time positioned on the lower left intersecting-thirds region of the image, contributing natural balance to the picture, and the way she is facing the fishing huts, leads the eye towards them.

This is the most balanced of the all the images, there is vertical and horizontal balance. The woman is aligned with the left vertical third and the rib with the right vertical third.

If she was standing closer to the bottom of the image it would be too much on the lower side of the visual fulcrum. If you don't understand what I mean, message me.

Image Five -  Bather adds balance to image from left intersecting third, darkened body and swimsuit.

As an aside, there are people who may question whether including a woman in swimwear risks objectification, It's a fair question, and one that has been going through my mind as I've been working on this.

One resolution, put into action in Image Five, is to take the image into adjustment software (Photoshop in my case) and use the burn-tool to darken down the bikini bottoms, brighten the image as a whole, and then, if necessary, do more burning-in, (as it's called from darkroom days) so that the person is just there as balance rather than distraction.

Image Six - Underwater rocks provide balance to the image

Moving on, I was then looking for other ways to balance the image.

Im image Six I moved along the shoreline and the morning stillness of the water allowed the submerged rocks to show in the picture.

They add balance, but if anything too much so, especially as I'd selected a wider angle lens on my iphone to allow them into the picture, but which diminishes the fishing huts..

Image Seven - Underwater rocks provide both balance and distraction to the image

Selecting the zoom lens for image seven, the angle of the rocks in the foreground up to the horizontal halfway, does achieve a better balance in the picture.

However the trench that runs diagonally across the foreground leads the eye out of the image.

So one good, countered by a not so good, and the picture is becoming messy.

Image Eight - Ancient cisterns for collecting and storing water, echoing Mallorca’s rural past.

With Image Eight, the last one in this article, I've selected the original lens, which has allowed rocks into the foreground and made the trench less dominant, and the way the water ripples are, the far end of the trench is masked, allowing the nearer part to point towards the huts.

But again quite messy.

As a summary, with the first image, along with six, seven and eight, the eye rests first on the fishing hut doors, and then moves up the cliff, before resting on the water. Even though the rocks are there as a balance, they are not sufficient to keep the eye from the upper part of the image, and add far more messiness than the woman in the water does.

With the person in the water, the eye lands first on the area of the fishermans huts and the rib, then immediately responds to the contrast of the figure in the water - so it's a bit like a visual see-saw - with image four providing a double see-saw with one fulcrum being, like the other two, the mid-point between the fishing huts and the bather, There is another line sort of running vertically between the woman and the rib.