Balance

Learning goal

You will be able to weigh how heavy the elements in a frame feel to the eye, and distribute these weights deliberately across the two sides of the frame. You will recognize that size, brightness, and saturated and warm colors, especially red, tend to make an element heavier for most viewers; you will explain that a small element moving away from the center carries more weight, as on a seesaw; you will build asymmetrical balance, where the two sides aren't equal but the frame still stands; you will decide when leaving a frame deliberately unbalanced tells a tension; and when there are several people in the frame, you will distribute the weight with light so that the faces on different skins all carry detail.

The question

You are on a pier in a coastal town, early in the morning. The dark navy hull of a big fishing boat fills the left half of the frame; in the right half there is only gray, calm water. You press the shutter button and, when you look at the screen, the frame feels strange to you: as if the whole photograph is sliding to the left, the boat sinking not into the water but into the edge of the frame.

A few seconds later, from the right side, from the far edge of the water, a small red buoy enters the frame with a wave. The same boat, the same water; but the frame suddenly settles into place. Why does a photo look as if it is about to tip over? And how can a red dot the size of a palm balance a huge boat? In this lesson we will talk about visual balance, what decides weight, and how to distribute these weights across the frame.

Context

Humans are creatures used to standing upright, not falling, and noticing things that lean. A painting hung crooked on a wall, a glass too close to the edge of a table, or a shelf piled to one side makes us uneasy. Something similar happens when we look at a photograph: the eye weighs the elements in the frame as if they had a weight, and when the weight gathers on one side, the frame is perceived as if it will fall to that side.

In Lesson 2.2 we got to know the features that draw the gaze, and in Lesson 6.3 we balanced a subject shifted to the edge with a small counterweight. This lesson grows that idea: it looks in detail at the sources of weight, looks at how weight changes depending on its place in the frame, and shows that both building balance and breaking it are decisions of expression.

Simple explanation

What feels heavy in a frame?

Visual balance is the way the weights the elements in a frame have for the eye are distributed across the sides of the frame. This weight has nothing to do with the element's real mass; a feather can look heavier than a rock. Big elements tend to look heavier than small ones, bright elements than faded ones, sharp elements than blurry ones. A dark mass gains weight on a light ground, and a light patch on a dark ground; that is, weight grows with how much the element stands apart from its surroundings.

Color weight also goes on this list. Saturated and warm colors, red, orange and yellow, stand out more in most viewers' eyes and look heavier than cool and faded colors. A single red umbrella in a gray crowd can balance the rest of the frame on its own. Faces, eyes and lettering are added to these: a human face, even if small, weighs very heavily in a frame. These tendencies don't all have to work in the same direction; a big but faded area can carry the same weight as a small but bright red dot.

What does a seesaw teach?

Think of a seesaw in a playground. If a heavy adult sits close to the pivot in the middle, a light child can balance them by sitting at the very end. The weights in a frame behave similarly: a big element standing close to the middle of the frame can be balanced by a small element standing close to the edge. We can call this leverage: the farther an element moves from the center, the bigger its effect on the frame's balance.

Asymmetrical balance is born from this effect. A frame can stand even without identical elements on its two sides; what balances the pier frame isn't a second boat as big as the first, but a small, bright and red buoy standing close to the right edge. Symmetrical balance gives a calm and still feeling; asymmetrical balance, on the other hand, moves the eye between two weights and adds movement to the frame. Neither of the two is the right one; which to choose depends on the feeling you want to tell.

When is imbalance a choice?

Not every frame has to be in balance. A frame where the weight gathers on one side and the other side stays empty or light tends to stir in most viewers a feeling of tension, unease, or that something is about to happen. When telling a harbor before a storm, a waiting passenger or an object left alone, this feeling can be exactly what is wanted. Intentional imbalance is piling the weight on one side on purpose.

What makes the difference is whether the decision is deliberate. In a frame left unbalanced by accident, the viewer usually feels something missing; in a frame deliberately left unbalanced, that lack becomes part of the story. The direction a person is looking carries weight too: someone looking to the right of the frame sends a weight into that space with their gaze, and the empty side no longer looks so light. Both building balance and breaking it are decisions you make according to what you want the viewer to feel.

How do faces and light distribute weight?

If there are several people in the frame, the brightest face is usually the heaviest element. When one of two people stands in the sun and the other in shadow, the eye goes almost only to the lit face and the frame falls to that side. On different skins this effect can become even more noticeable: in the same light, light skin looks brighter because it reflects more light back, while dark skin can lose its detail more quickly inside the shadow. This doesn't mean that one of the skins is too much or too little in the frame; it only shows how light distributes weight.

If you want to show several people in balance, first bringing them all into the same light helps: the open shade of a building, a boat or a tree shrinks the brightness difference between faces. After shooting, look closely at the screen: is the highlight warning blinking on the light face, can the eyes and the line of the lips be made out on the dark face? If both carry detail, the weight is now distributed not by the chance of the light, but by your placement.

Visual evidence

You go back to the pier. Beside the boat, two people are mending a net: an old fisherman, dark-skinned, his face lined by the wind, and his light-skinned, freckled grandchild. In the first frame the grandchild stands inside a patch of sun and the grandfather in the shadow of the boat; when you look at the screen, your eye goes only to the grandchild's shining face, the grandfather's eyes are lost in the dark, and the whole frame leans to the right.

Asking their permission, you ask the two of them to move a few steps to the side, into the open shade of the boat. Now both faces are in the same soft light; the grandfather's hands and eyes, the grandchild's freckles and eyelashes can be made out. You place the two of them on the right third of the frame, and leave in the frame the small red buoy floating on the water near the left edge. The two heavy faces are close to the center, the small red dot at the edge; the seesaw comes into balance. Finally you take one more frame: this time you leave the buoy out and give the left half to empty gray water, and the grandfather looks into the emptiness, toward the horizon. The frame is slightly unbalanced, but this imbalance now tells of waiting.

Common mistakes

Summary

Visual balance is the distribution, across the sides of the frame, of the weights the elements in a frame have for the eye; big, bright, sharp, saturated and warm-colored elements, especially reds, faces and lettering tend to look heavier for most viewers. As on a seesaw, a small element moving away from the center carries more weight, and this leverage makes possible asymmetrical balance, which stands without the two sides being equal; piling the weight on one side on purpose, on the other hand, can tell a tension. In a frame with several people, light distributes the weight; bringing everyone into the same light gives a frame where the faces carry detail on every skin and the balance is built by your decision.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will build and break balance by moving weights around in the same scene.

1. Photograph a big, dark element, a door, a car or a tree, putting it on one side of the frame and leaving the other side empty.
2. Photograph the same frame again, adding or finding a small but bright or red element near the edge; put the two frames side by side.
3. Take two frames placing the small element first close to the center, then close to the edge; look at which one changes the balance more.
4. Photograph two people first in different light, then in the same open shade, and check on the screen whether both faces carry detail.

Check yourself

• Did the small element placed near the edge create more change in balance than the one placed near the center?
• In the frame you left unbalanced, does this imbalance tell something, or does it only look like something missing?
• In the frame with two people, can both faces be made out with their eyes and detail, regardless of skin tone?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. In a gray, calm scene, which of these will most likely look the heaviest?

• A) A wide, faded cloud
• B) A small, bright, red buoy
• C) A blurry background
• D) A gray wall

2. According to leverage, where does a small element change the frame's balance the most?

• A) In the exact center
• B) Very close to the center
• C) Close to the edge
• D) Its position makes no difference at all

3. What feeling does a frame where the weight is piled on one side on purpose tend to stir in most viewers?

• A) Tension or waiting
• B) Certainly calm
• C) Only silence
• D) Always joy

4. Which is the most suitable first step to show two people, one in the sun and one in shadow, in balance?

• A) Take the one in shadow out of the frame
• B) Set the exposure only for the face in the sun
• C) Bring both into the same open shade and check the detail of both faces on the screen
• D) Turn the frame into black and white

Answers

1. B — Even if small, brightness, saturation and the color red make an element that stands apart from its surroundings heavier to the eye.
2. C — As on a seesaw, the element moving away from the center affects the balance more.
3. A — Weight piled on one side makes the frame look as if it will topple, and this stirs tension in most viewers.
4. C — The same light shrinks the brightness difference between the two faces; the check on the screen shows that detail is kept on every skin.

Summary card

• Big, bright, sharp, saturated, warm-colored and red elements, faces and lettering weigh heavily to the eye.
• Seesaw: a small element moving away from the center carries more weight.
• Asymmetrical balance: the two sides aren't equal, but the frame stands.
• Intentional imbalance can tell tension; imbalance by accident looks like something missing.
• With several people, light distributes the weight; bring everyone into the same light, let detail stay in every face.

Bridge to the next lesson

While distributing the weights, we placed the two people on the pier on the right third of the frame; the rule of thirds is only one of the proportions that tell us where to put weight. A close relative of it is the golden ratio, known by the number of about 1.618, around which many stories have grown claiming it carries a hidden power in nature, architecture and painting. Does this ratio really give the photographer a secret, or is it no more than a helper line a little different from the rule of thirds? The next lesson talks about the golden ratio, the spiral, and how much of this ratio is useful and how much is myth.