Sometimes it feels like producing well-composed images is an endlessly moving target. You’re given this compositional rule, that compositional guideline, those compositional considerations…yet keeping it all in mind while shooting can be a nightmare, and what happens when you come across another technique that you failed to consider?
Well, today I want to give you one more compositional tool: balance. Balance, however, isn’t like standard compositional tricks; instead, it’s more fundamental to photography. In fact, some photographers argue that most (or even all) compositional advice comes from the pursuit of visual balance – so if you start using this concept as you compose your images, it’ll allow you to structure your photos very successfully.
But what is balance as it relates to photography? How does it work? And how can you use it in the field? In this article, I explore all of these questions, and I share nine approaches to creating balance in your images.
Let’s dive right in!
What is balance in photography?
Balance is a way of composing an image so that all elements complement each other equally. When an image is properly balanced, it features visual tension or harmony; this, in turn, results in an aesthetically pleasing shot.
But balance isn’t a simple compositional trick. Many different elements can be involved in incorporating balance into your image composition, including:
- Color
- Light versus shadow
- Texture
- Visual weight
- Subject placement
- Relation of elements to one other
- Symmetry
- Depth of field
- Negative space
How do you achieve balance?
When you compose your shot, you need to think about the different elements and how they interact and relate to each other. What is the story you want to tell or frame? What is the emotion you are trying to convey?
Balance can be harmonious, where all elements are equally present and form an aesthetically pleasing whole (symmetry is a good example). A landscape scene perfectly mirrored in a still pond or lake is very harmonious.
Alternatively, an image can have visual tension due to balance. It may seem counterintuitive, but think about negative space or a small spot of bright red in an otherwise dull image. In such cases, the image is balanced, yet it doesn’t feel harmonious (at least not in a simple sense).
Often, several different factors come into play when considering balance. In other words, it’s not necessarily just one problem to solve for each image. Every scene has color, objects, tones, contrast, and so on, which are all involved in producing that final sense of balance.
Balancing a composition has to do with the mechanics of how you take the photo (light/shadow/contrast/tone), but it also has to do with more visual elements (symmetry/negative space/subject placement). So there are many different things to consider at once within each image.
Let’s look at each in more detail!
1. Color
When color film was finally invented, it had a huge impact on photography. Being able to photograph in bright colors instead of monochrome was very different. It led to many different styles and techniques in photography and is the dominant way images are processed today.
Color, therefore, dramatically affects your images. It allows you to evoke emotion, create tension, highlight specific elements, catch the viewer’s attention, and tell the story of the scene in different ways.
Take this garden shot:
It features all different foliage shades of green and yellow, yet the eye goes immediately to the small but prominent red flowers. This image has balance because the red has a lot of visual weight, but physically, the red is only a small part of the overall image.
If the red took up a lot more space, it would overwhelm; instead, it gives the viewer a place to start the journey as they look at all the different textures and colors contained in the garden.
You can also use color to evoke a mood, a feeling, or a period of time. This old bicycle was turned into a welcome sign at a historic homestead:
Thanks to a slight sepia tone, the image displays all the textures in the shot and evens out all the different competing colors. The focus becomes the bicycle and not the bright green of the grass or the red of the chicken in the background. Changing the colors balances out all the other elements and allows you to emphasize the subject you want to be the focus.
2. Light versus shadow
Light and shadow are opposing elements, and both are necessary for photography. If you have light, in general, you will have shadows. When you have both present it gives your subjects added dimension; they become three-dimensional elements, even though they are being viewed in a flat two-dimensional medium (either printed or on a screen).
Contrast and tonal differences make an image more dynamic and interesting. Contrast comes from the difference between the amount of light and shadow in an image. More contrast also widens out the tonal range of the image. If the tones are too similar, the shot will look very flat, like this seaside landscape:
So learning to use both light and shadow together can create balance in your images. I photographed the horseshoes below so that the harsh midday sun created the shadows, which resulted in those interesting patterns and showed how the horseshoes hang on the nails. It would be a much less interesting image without the shadows!
3. Texture
Texture can be present in different ways. In the image of the spoons with spices below, there are three layers of texture: the background surface, the spices in the spoons, and some scattered spices. While there is a lot of texture in the image, it all balances out due to the scale and the scattered spices in between, which helps transition between the spices and the industrial background.
If the extra scattered spices were not there, I don’t think the image would work so well, as the eye wouldn’t transition effectively from the textured spices to the smoother background surface.
This blueberry shot uses texture in a different way, where the subjects themselves become the textural element (with some added interest in the form of water droplets).
Without the droplets, it would be a much less interesting image – and the fine detail of the droplets helps balance out the size of the berries, giving the eye more elements to engage with.
If you’re struggling to find textures around you, take a minute to observe your surroundings. Texture is everywhere; think tree bark, patterns on the water, brick walls, cracks in the pavement, clouds in the sky, foliage in a garden, shiny reflective metal, stones in a pond, sand at the beach.
Texture is all around you and in everything you see, but it is often taken for granted. Texture can be highlighted and become a key element in your image if you take the time to see it and take advantage of it!
4. Visual weight
Visual weight is a tricky concept to come to grips with as it sometimes seems a bit contradictory. How can a small element overwhelm the rest of the image? How can one color dominate another?
In the butterfly image below, the tones are all very similar. Even the colors are shades of yellow and brown. Yet the visual weight is held by the fuzzy green leaf in the bottom right-hand corner:
If I were to crop the bottom section off, it would completely change the feel of the image, and the butterfly would become more prominent.
This next image is a personal favorite. It shows a fresh new bright limestone headstone in a cemetery of very old and weathered stones:
The light was at the perfect angle to highlight the bright stone, and as you can see, it carries a lot of visual weight – yet it’s only a very small element physically within the image. The central placement works well in balancing the other elements around it and allows more of the story to be told. If I had composed the shot so the frame was tighter on the headstone, the resulting image would have a very different feel.
5. Subject placement
Where you place the subject in the frame is important in many ways. It can be used to show scale, to show the relationship between elements, to highlight tension, or to create a specific feel or stylistic tone to an image.
A classic example is the rule of thirds, which suggests that a centered subject lacks drama and impact. Instead, according to the rule of thirds, you should place the subject a third of the way into the frame to make it more dynamic.
Also, when the subject is looking in a particular direction, where you place them affects the feeling of the image. If they are looking out of the frame, placing them close to the edge creates a very different feeling compared to if you compose the image so that they are looking more into or across the frame.
In the cave image below, the people add balance by providing scale. Without them, we would be unable to appreciate the true size of the cave as we have no context to apply:
The bright colors of their clothes also offer some visual weight in contrast to the textured details of the rock walls. The positioning at the bottom of the frame grounds the image and helps tell the story.
In this next image, the placement of the bellbird on the branch is an appealing balance of angles and lines:
The line of the main branch is echoed by the blurred ones in the background, which gives some depth and scale to the image. The bird is a nice size within the image, large enough to see the details but not cramped within the frame. His crimson eye holds a lot of visual weight, as well. If the bird was angled the other way, it would be less pleasing as it would not be balanced the same way (the “X” of the bird’s body and the branch is symmetrical!).
6. The relationships between elements
This takes the placement concept a step further. It’s about considering the specific relationship between elements and how can you use them in composing your images.
Take a look at this landscape shot below, which is a pretty simple land/sea/sky shot:
If you focus on the right-hand side of the frame, it’s not very interesting at all. But the inclusion of the sign next to the edge of the cliff changes everything. The bright red letters catch our attention (as they should!), and even though the sign is small, it has a large impact.
Had the sign not been so close to the edge, the photo would be less compelling. In composing this, I used the rule of thirds to provide scale and context with the cliff edge off to the right; I wanted to show that the cliff continued (it was a whole headland of several hundred meters with just this one sign).
Below is a landscape shot of some fossilized totara tree trunks at Curio Bay, The Catlins, NZ. I used a wide-angle lens, knowing that I needed to include a foreground element to anchor the shot and provide context.
The person also helps tell more of the story while providing a color pop of bright blue visual interest and weight against the sand and rock. His presence in the front of the frame balances out the large landscape behind him and gives scale so the viewer can appreciate how big the landscape is.
7. Symmetry
When used thoughtfully, symmetry can be an effective way to create balance in your photos. However, putting your subject dead-center in the frame can be risky. While a mirror image in a lake or puddle can be pretty, it can also be quite static and uninteresting. It’s an odd situation where the image is perfectly balanced and yet doesn’t work compositionally!
Below, you can see the trees reflected in the lake:
The reflection is there and it creates some symmetry, but the angle at which it has been shot puts the focus on the landscape. In other words, the reflection is not necessarily the point of the image; it’s more of a bonus. Also, the way the trees are arranged creates balance across the image, the two golden willows are rounded and slightly shadowed.
Note that the willows are counterbalanced by the taller golden poplar, with similarly toned grass behind and the green of the reeds in the water. There is enough contrast in the image with the light and shadow elements to add depth and interest, while the gold/blue color combination is an aesthetically pleasing one. The reflection softens the colors and tones enough that they allow the actual landscape to take prominence. I specifically composed the frame with all those things in mind.
8. Depth of field
Does everything in your image have to be 100% sharp? I don’t think so. You can use depth of field creatively by balancing the subject against a softer background, and this allows the subject to be a prominent focal point.
I photographed the larch cones above with a wide aperture, which produced sharp cones on a blurry background. But imagine how the image would look if it were shot at f/16. All the foliage and trees in the background would be far clearer, and the cones would be lost against the chaos.
(Portrait photographers frequently use this to their advantage, photographing with a shallow depth of field to help the subject stand out from a messy or distracting background.)
9. Negative space
Negative space is an interesting composition element. On occasion, extreme use of negative space (sometimes referred to as minimalism) can be a good way to create balance in a photo – though it can be tricky to determine when it might work and when it might fail. Also, being brave enough to try a different approach than you might normally use is challenging.
I do think that, when used carefully, this approach provides a lot of empty space that creates balance for a particular subject. It is often used successfully in travel photos, where brightly colored walls or buildings offer a great canvas for passersby in the foreground.
This gerbera shot has a lot of negative space on the left and underneath the flower:
Thanks to the curving stem and the dynamic angle of the flower, there’s a very nice sense of movement. The negative space helps counterbalance that energy.
The smooth soft water of this long exposure offers some negative space to balance out the visual weight of the rocks and the busy sky:
And the light tones of the water also create balance with the darker tones of the sand.
Use balance to create better compositions!
Sometimes, an image can feel just subtly off – even though the subject and light look good, and the composition seems decent. In such cases, it’s worth taking a look at those compositions with fresh eyes while considering the balance of the different elements discussed here. Perhaps you will begin to see some opportunities to compose your images in a different way!
In fact, maybe instead of trying to remember all the complicated rules of composition, keep it much simpler and start with balance.
Of course, like everything in photography, there is no one single right way to do it. Instead, there are many different ways, and hopefully one will resonate with you to help you learn something new.
Now over to you:
Can you think of other ways to apply balance to your compositions? Which of these ways do you plan to use? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
