Formal Elements are visual features used in composition that have the power to turn ordinary topics into great photographs.

 

Here are the 6 elements of Formal Elements:

Line: Line in photographs can be straight, curvy, thin, thick, vertical, or horizontal. Photographers often use lines in photos to draw the audience’s attention, which then creates direction in photographs. However, sometimes lines can also split or outline subjects, dividing space in a photo.

 

Shape: Shape in photographs can be either geometric or organic. Shapes can create varied effects in your photos, which help photographers to increase the artistic value of their work. Different shapes can convey different senses of feeling to the viewers.  For instance, circles are frequently used in photography to convey a sense of harmony and balance, while triangles can give a sense of movement and drama.

 

Repetition/Pattern: Pattern and repetition are elements that occur repeatedly in a predictable manner. It is usually created by lines, shapes, and colors. Patterns could be natural or manufactured, but they bring the same visual effects to the viewers.

 

Texture: In photography, the texture of a photograph is the visual representation of differences in an object’s surface color, depth, and shape. Texture can highlight patterns in a photo, and when capturing the texture of a surface, it also captures the feelings you get when you touch it in three dimensions. Thus it is similar to the picture’s context, which can convey emotions to viewers.

 

Tone: The level of brightness, from black to white, in a photo is called the tone of the photo. Shadows can show dark tones, where as lights can show bright tones. Tones set photogarphs’ emotion, which means the audience can feel the emotion of photographs through its tones.

 

Focus: Foucs represent photographers’ point of view of a subject, but also draws audiences’ attention to the main subject in a photo. Since the focus of pictures catch viewers’ eyes, different focus of a same subject can create different feelings.

 

Every image can show multiple elements at a time. In other words, every image is a combination of different elements. For instance, the picture that shows “patterns” also contains shapes and lines, and the photograph that shows “shapes” also includes lines. Formal elements exist in combinations; a photo always shows multiple formal elements. Moreover, this is what nature looks like. Our world is built with different elements, as same as our photographs.