To build on our design concepts, I reviewed several principles of design as defined by Joshua David McClurg-Genevese in his article, The Principles of Design.  I carried my camera around with me in case I saw something that sparked a memory of one of the principles I studied.   The five concepts I got to know the best were colour, balance, proportion, dominance, and continuance.

My first photo, representing colour, is of the sky at dusk.  The idea of colour is to create a mood, which this photo certainly does.  The combination of blue, white, and pink creates a sense of calm, which is almost turned creepy by the fog rolling in.

My next photo was taken in the UMW Simpson Library and represent’s Dominance.  Dominance determines which object or part of the photo the eye is drawn to first.  In this photo, the eye is initially drawn to the books since they are the closest and largest object. The student in the background is less dominant since she is farther away and “smaller” than the books.

Proportion is the relationship in scale between objects in a photo.  The photo I took of my neighbor’s pumpkins and garbage bin compares the large size of the bin to the small size of the pumpkins.  On top of that, the pumpkins themselves even differ in size compared to each other.

There are two types of balance: Symmetrical and Asymmetrical.  The photo I took in the park this week represents Asymmetrical balance, because the “weight” of the subjects are not evenly distributed around a central axis. The tree fills the space on the left side of the frame, but there is nothing to fill the space on the right.

Finally, continuance was not a concept we had to learn, but McClurg-Genevese did talk about it. He states that continuance is the idea that once you look in one direction, you will continue to do so until something else catches your eye. I didn’t take this photo this week, but I had to put it as an example of this concept because it’s just perfect! You start by looking down the row of houses and the beach until you reach the right edge of the photo.  Nothing takes your attention away from continuing down that long stretch of beach.