Gestalt theory in photography The human brain works in exciting ways to understand reality and perceive the world around it. Armed with a good understanding of Gestalt theories, you can improve your compositional ideas and create more powerful images that effectively intrigue your audiences and draw them into your world. Key concepts Gestalt: the idea that the whole is different than the sum of its parts. Figure-Ground: we will always tend to differentiate a form from it’s surroundings. The shape or form that serves as the focus of an image is the figure, and the surroundings or negative space is known as the ground Continuation: The law of continuity posits that the human eye will follow the smoothest path when viewing lines, regardless of how the lines were actually drawn. Proximity: Elements that are placed close to each other will often be perceived as one group. The close proximity unifies them together and will help to form a figure within an image. Similarity & Proximity Two important gestalt principles are similarity and proximity. Visual elements that are near each other will be seen as belonging and grouped; those that are similar will also be seen as belonging together. The […]
Some photographs in Country doctor can be encountered on their own with each providing its own narrative- see examples below: