TAOP - Part 1 - Exercise 6 - Balance

This blog post is in relation to the exercise on Page 38 of the OCA Photography 1 - TAOP course material.

If we break a photograph down to its most basic concept, it simply becomes shapes of light or dark or colour. Our eyes and brain recognise different objects and scenes, but if we take away that recognition, all it becomes is a collection of geometric lines and blocks. To me this is what is meant when the exercise asks to think about balance. It's not about what the photograph is of, it's simply shades of light and colour.

So when we analyse a picture for balance, we are talking about symmetry and weight. I have selected a few old photos and tried to show what I think shows the balance of each.

If the thumbnail links are missing, view full images on the Flicker set for this exercise

TAOP-Part1-Ex6-1

TAOP-Part1-Ex6-2

TAOP-Part1-Ex6-3

TAOP-Part1-Ex6-4

TAOP-Part1-Ex6-5

TAOP-Part1-Ex6-6

This last one is a good example of symmetry and therefore doesn't need a diagram to shows this.