The Elements of Art – Space

The Element of Space in Architecture Photography

Space is a very important element because it gives your images depth. Images without depth from foreground to background appear flat and are less realistic and inviting.

Landscape photography is a great way to demonstrate how to use space to give your photographs more depth. This image below is an example of a lack of depth. While there are still a background, middle ground, and foreground, they are not as defined as they could be.

The Element of Space in Landscape Photography

This image of Big Laurel Creek has much more separation between levels of depth. This was achieved by a large difference in light levels as well as distortion from a wide-angle lens. The background adds to the image, but it isn’t overwhelming. The foreground is large, dominant, and right where your eye lands on the subject of the image. The middle ground works to bridge the two.

The Element of Space in Landscape Photography

Here are a few more images with a huge separation of foreground and background.

The Element of Space in Landscape Photography

In the next image, technically the background is the focal point. Your eye is drawn BACK in to the image until you can’t go any deeper. The foreground is close, but not distracting.

The Element of Space in Architecture Photography

The Element of Space in Landscape Photography

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The Elements of Art – Form

Element of Form in Landscape Photography

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The element of form is what takes a two-dimensional photograph and makes it appear three-dimensional. A flat image is boring and an image with depth and form is much more interesting.

Portraits

Put simply, lighting can be hard and harsh with sharp shadows, or soft with very smooth shadows. The longer the transition between light and dark, the softer the light is. With either soft or hard light, form is created through light and shadow.

The image below was taken with a very frontal, harsh sunlight. It gives very little shape to Madison’s face and therefore lacks “form”.

Comparing the above image to the one below, you can really see how different lighting can give more form to the face. Even though this is “softer” light, it is from the side, creating shadows that give form to her face.

Landscape

Landscapes are affected by the same quality of form, depending on the position of the sun. The below image from Wayah Bald in North Carolina was taken in the middle of the day with the sun directly overhead. There is very little form to the mountains because of the lack of shadows.

Element of Form in Landscape Photography

This image of Cades Cove from Gregory Bald in the Smokies was taken late in the evening, near sunset. With the sun near the horizon, there are a huge number of shadows, giving form to the mountains valleys and ridges.

Element of Form in Landscape Photography

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Ten Tricks to Optimize Your Camera’s Features

Format Your Memory Card

Here are ten tricks you can use to optimize your camera by using features you didn’t know about or didn’t know how they worked! These menu images apply to a Canon T2i, but any Canon or even Nikon DSLR will have similar options within its own menus.

RGB Histogram

1. Change your histogram to RGB

Setting your histogram to view as RGB allows you to see exactly which colors are clipping or are too dark. Sometimes, especially in landscape photography, only one or two colors are actually being blown out. If you are only using a brightness histogram, you wouldn’t know it!

 

 

Format Your Memory Card

2. Format Your Memory Card After Every Project

Formatting your card after every shoot, project, or whenever it gets full reduces the chance of corruption. Simply erasing files individually adds a small amount of left over data each time, leading to possible problems later.

 

 

Back Button AF

3. Set Auto Focus to the Back Button

Under the custom functions, you’ll find a screen similar to this one to change the functions of the shutter button and AE lock button on the back. Setting the AF button to the back button will allow you to focus once and keep that focus for every shot until you need to change.

 

 

LCD Brightness

4. Set LCD Brightness to 4 or 5

Under normal indoor conditions, the default LCD brightness should be 4 or 5. Outdoors, you may need to increase it so you can see it better. The scale on the right allows you to see the difference in values. You will want to be able to tell a difference between each one, so that the whitest value is not blown out. Trying to determine a picture’s exposure by the LCD is really not recommended. The histogram is a much more accurate representation.

 

My Menu Settings5. Add Your Most Used Functions to the Favorites Tab

Some of your favorite items may be deep in the menus and difficult to get to. Adding these to the “My Menu” favorites tab makes it easier to access them.

 

 

 

Release Shutter Without Card

6. Release Shutter Without Card

If you don’t have a memory card in the slot, you don’t want to start taking pictures! This option will prevent that from happening just in case you forgot to insert your card.

 

 

 

RAW + JPEG7. Shoot RAW or RAW + JPEG

If you have the space on your computer, you NEED to be shooting in RAW with your DSLR. This is basically an equivalent to a digital negative, allowing so much more manipulation after the picture is taken. Exposure, black point, brightness, white balance, and many more can be adjusted in post processing without any loss in quality (to a certain extent). You can also shoot in RAW + JPEG to make processing easier during editing. The JPEG will be used for previews which are much faster and smaller to view and share.

 

Image Review Off

8. Turn Image Review Off

This is more of a personal preference, but if you have confidence in the photos you are taking, you shouldn’t have to check each photo immediately after you take it.

 

 

 

sRGB Color Space9. Color Space

Unless you know a lot about color space, you should set yours to sRGB. You will also want to go in to your PC or Mac’s display settings to make sure it is also set to sRGB. Thirdly, you can go in to your editing program’s settings and do the same. This streamlines all the colors in every step of the photography process. Printing is also another consideration; you’ll want to look in to your printing company’s policies as to what your color space should be when you send them an image.

 

Neutral Picture Style

10. Use a Neutral Picture Style

Even though you shouldn’t be guessing exposure by the image on the LCD, using a neutral picture style allows you to see more dynamic range. The CineStyle preset is a very flat picture style that is also great for shooting video. The histogram will also display this extended dynamic range, so you can adjust exposure accordingly to get the most out of a RAW file. Mainly, this is done by reducing any contrast that is added to the RAW by the camera processing, keeping it as original as possible.

 

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The Elements of Art – Tone

Black and White Sunset

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Black and white photography is completely dependent upon tone. Tone is the various amounts of light and dark in a photo. More contrast means more tones. Color photographs also have tone but also have an extra element of hues. Below are a few examples of tone in black and white photography.

Flowers

This macro photograph of a blooming flower uses tone to separate the background from the foreground subject. Tone also gives detail to the leaves.

Zoo Atlanta Gorillas

Tone also separates the background and foreground in this image. There isn’t much light tone in the gorillas so it is nearly a silhouette.

Tusquitee Bald

The clouds made this photo front the summit of Tusquitee Bald. The clouds had so much variety of tone and the shadows cast on the ground added to the contrast in the mountains.

Black and White Sunset

This shot of a sunset uses tone in small detailed areas to give it a high contrast look.

Black and White Flowers

The last shot is a macro image of a cluster of flowers. These flowers were a bright purple, but adding a black and white filter in post processing added a huge amount of contrast.

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The Elements of Art – Shape

Shape

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The fourth element of art is shape. Shape is a two dimensional area formed by the other elements of art.

The photo below is an excellent example of the element of line creating circle shapes. Notice how the way the shapes are arranged across the image helps to lead the eye far back into space.

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The Elements of Art – Line

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The next element of art that can be used to improve your photography is line. Line is created by shapes, edges of shapes, differences in tone, or anything that makes your eye follow a path.

Line is VERY important to getting your viewer to look at your images the way YOU want them to. Lines naturally lead viewer’s eyes around. There are actual lines such as a rail, a road, or a tree. Implied lines are things like edges of a building, the line of a model’s body, or elements that are in a line but not really connected.

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The Elements of Art in Photography

Tone

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In fine art of any media, there are seven basic elements of art. There are also the principles of design, but I will get to that in another post. I learned the elements of art while studying fine arts at Young Harris College. While we only applied these to other mediums such as painting, charcoal, and pencil drawing, they are just as applicable to photography!

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