How to Effectively Use Shape in Photography

Hi everyone, I'm professional nature and travel photographer, Ian Plant. One easy way to spice up your photography and to take photos that get noticed, is to incorporate what I like to call power shapes into your compositions. Shapes which are also known as forms, are the building blocks of image design. The foundation upon, which a photographic composition is built. Our world contains a seemingly never-ending array of shapes such as lines, curves, triangles, squares, spirals, rectangles, and circles. Learning how to recognize, identify, and work with all of these shapes. And more critically, to find a way to make shapes work together. Is fundamentally important to mastering composition. This is especially true when working with a chaotic scene. In order to visually simplify the image, and thus make it more relatable to your viewers. You have to find a single bold, eye-catching visual element which serves to draw attention. Keeping the viewer from lingering over long on other more chaotic elements of the scene. Abstract thinking is a vital importance when working with shapes. You gotta stop thinking about a tree as a tree for example. But rather as a vertical line. A mountain is not a mountain. But instead it's a triangle. You know, and so on. Learning to visualize in the abstract is the key to successfully recognizing and working with shapes. Here are just a few of my favorite shapes to use in my compositions. Lines are simple, yet powerful shapes which propel the eye deeper into the scene. For this photo, taken from inside a slot canyon in the desert of Utah, I use the lines formed by light penetrating the gloomy canyon interior to lead the viewer's eye into the composition. Circles act to trap the viewer's eye and hold it over time. For this photo of the northern lights over eastern Iceland, I was really excited when the aurora band in the sky took on this circular shape. I selected a foreground that would mimic and repeat that shape. And then waited for a big wave to come in and fill in the spaces between the rocks, revealing the circle shape in the foreground. Triangles provide stability and balance to a composition. And they can also point or lead the viewer's eye. For this photo taken in Joshua Tree National Park, the composition consists of several triangles all working together. Including the triangle shape boulders in the background, the cloud above, and the triangle shape of the rock in the foreground that points the viewer's eye deeper into the scene. S-curves are energetic shapes that get the eye moving back and forth. Forcing the viewer to look at multiple points of interest within the composition. For this aerial photo taken with my drone of a surface flow of lava on the big island of Hawaii, I triggered the shutter when the flow zigzagged into this S-curve shape. Spirals powerfully draw and hold the viewer's eye. You should use these bold shapes with extreme caution. The double helix design of the staircase in this photo, creates a spiral shape that sucks the viewer into the composition and never lets go. So always be on the lookout for interesting shapes when you're making photo compositions. The shapes can be the basis of your visual design or just a part of the overall composition. Either way, you'll find that using shapes will make your photos much more interesting. I'm Ian Plant, and thanks for watching.