As stated in the course material, this balance between figure and space is down to experience; consequently it’s difficult to find instruction in other documents. There are obviously things that can make a difference to any image. For instance the composition of an image takes into consideration, colour, shape, contrast (not only tonal), lenses, camera settings etc. – looked at in ‘The Art of Photography’ module.
Michael Freeman’s book ‘The Photographer’s Eye’ contains lots of advice in the balancing of elements in an image in the ‘Design Basics’ section where he addresses balance; dynamic tension; figure and ground; rhythm; perspective and depth; visual weight etc. Obviously taking these points into consideration will have an impact on the positioning of a person in any space. This positioning will alter the ‘weighting’ in the scene, either towards or away from the person.
Another of Michael Freeman’s books – ‘Photographing People’ has the section ‘Daily Life’ with the subsection ‘Framing the figure’ where he looks at the impact of positioning the figure in the image.
With the person positioned to the side and looking away from the camera, the eye is directed to the temple in the distance.
With the person positioned nearer the centre and looking towards the camera, he becomes the main object of the image.
So obviously the position of the person in the frame has an immense effect on where the eye is directed.
Other factors which should be taken into consideration are:
The size of the person relative to the frame – obviously if a person takes up a larger part of the frame, he / she will have more of presence in the image and vice versa.
The depth of field for the lens – if wide aperture is used, then a short depth of field is created which then throws the background out of focus, leaving a person in the foreground more prominent.
Lighting in the image can change the prominence of either the background or the foreground, particularly if using additional lighting or reflectors, and natural lighting for the chiaroscuro effect. See Michael Freeman’s ‘The Complete Guide to Light and Lighting in Digital Photography’.
The colour and contrast of an image can change the prominence of a person. Consider the image above, where the man in the snow is wearing dark clothes against an almost white background. This strong contrast makes the person stand out more.
So there are lots of criteria that will influence the presentation of people in an image. I’ll keep them in mind when photographing for the next exercise.
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