As an aesthetic tool, “emphasis” shows one element standing out or apart from others. It can differ from them in subject matter, color, size, shape or placement within the frame. Whatever the difference, the exceptional element stands out as the center of interest. It’s the most important element and key to the image’s meaning. The […]
A blog series featuring form, line, color, contrast, texture, gradation… Television tower This posting begins a series that will focus on the aesthetic tools that visual artists and others use, singly and in combination, to create still and moving images that accomplish specific communication objectives. Knowing the purpose of an image before we pick up […]
In pictorial art, composition relates to how visual elements are organized within a frame. Both Eastern and Western artists through the centuries developed insightful guidelines to help them maintain the viewer’s attention. Aspiring artists and many in the public appreciate that the organization of elements within a frame influences the viewer’s experience of an image. […]
Technically, “depth of field” (DOF) is the optical phenomenon of a lens that expresses the distance about the plane of focus where objects appear acceptably sharp in an image. Creatively speaking, it’s the relative degree of sharpness between objects that are close to or farther away from a lens. When both distances, near and far, […]
Technically speaking, “contrast” in the pictorial realm is the ratio between the darkest dark and the lightest light in an image. “Soft” contrast at one end of the continuum indicates that there’s very little difference between the lights and darks, the extreme being a “muddy” or “flat” image, gray overall—as in the image below. […]
Contemplative Photography 