Design Principles

While reading this chapter, I kept applying all of the principles to my thoughts about my photography process. I realized that a few of these things are things I have always struggled with.

Balanced grouping, especially in Family Photos, is something that I have a special frustration with, because I feel like I really just don’t have an eye for. I can do 1-2 people easily, but when you get more than that? I pretty much cannot come up with any really nice combinations when in the spur of the moment. I realized this struggle a couple of years ago, and while I still haven’t gotten a lot better, I have made a little progress and it is a skill I am very definitely trying to grow.  

On the other hand, there are some aspects of design that I feel like I have been able to gain skills in more easily, such as Emphasis through Contrast, and Scale and Proportion. Four years ago, I taught a three week photography class to young teenagers about Dramatic Emphasis through Contrast in Photography, and it was super fun, and I loved getting to share my love of dramatic, contrasting photography with young teens who were super willing to soak up all I had to share. It was a great three weeks.

Anyways, my thoughts here are that it is very interesting how some of these principles come much more easily to me as an artist than others.

Below are four Dramatic Light/Contrast shots that I used or took for that class, and one is a photo that I took to show texture, which is another design principle.