Art Giberson
165.7
Figure 12-16.—“S” composition.
“S”
The “S” composition, covered earlier as curved
lines, is undoubtedly the one photographers use most
and the one most popular with viewers (fig. 12-16).
RHYTHM OR PATTERN
One word often heard in connection with
photographs is rhythm. It simply means a repetition of
some kind and maybe a shape or a line (fig. 12-17). An
illustration in nature is that of a field of wheat, blown by
the wind, with each shaft of grain being uniformly bent
in the breeze, producing rhythm with changing patterns.
TONE
Tone refers to the color of each object in a
photograph. In black-and-white photography, the gray
would run from white through all shades of gray to black
One of the most effective ways of giving impact to the
point of interest is to contrast it sharply by color with the
other objects in the photograph.
Variations in tones or contrast are important
elements in the distribution of weight in a composition.
Darker tones create the impression of greater weight.
Thus a large light-toned object can be counterbalanced
by a smaller dark-toned object. The contrasting tones
may be nothing more than shadows or cloud formations.
The balancing of equal or unequal tonal areas can be
simplified by dividing the photograph space and
arranging the objects in opposite thirds of the
photograph or at the intersections of the vertical and
horizontal lines.
DEPTH PERCEPTION
As far as the physical characteristics of a photo-
graph are concerned, it has only two dimensions —
length and width. Nevertheless, since we are
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