Gestalt Laws.

A good place to start is by explain what the hell Gestalt Laws are then maybe to look at how these can be used to benefit Photography.

Basically Gestalt which is a German word meaning "essence or shape of an entity's complete form" was an idea developed by some German and Austrian Psychologists to help understand how the mind works when presented with certain images set out in a certain way following 6 laws they created. These are as follows-

Law of Proximity- Elements are seen in groupings according to how close they are to each other, what this means is that if you look below at the image on the left you see a square created by individual circles but if you put spaces between the columns the mind interprets it differently and sees instead three columns instead because of the way they are now spaced.

Law of Similarity- elements that are similar in some way, by form or content, tend to be grouped, for example below because the circles are black and white you see three rows of each because this is how the mind interprets the grouping.
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Law of Closure- Elements roughly arranged together are seen to complete an outline shape. The mind seeks completeness. With this example below you can still see that the two shapes are a circle and square because your mind recognises what of the shape is present and then fills in the gaps.

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Law of Simplicity- simple lines, curves and shapes are preferred to complex ones, basically the mind prefers simple straight forward images, anything with lines, curves running in all directions it finds hard to understand. It would seem a simple is best approach works best.

Law of Common Fate- group elements are assumed to move together and behave as one, if say a herd of animals all seem to be moving in the same direction the brain interprets them all as belonging to the same group because of this group movement.

Law of Good Continuation- the mind's eye likes to continue shapes and lines beyond their ending points, when they disappear out of the frame the mind understands that they continue/carry on in the case of shapes.

So now I've explain what the Gestalt Laws are its time to try to understand how these can be used as an advantage within Photography. The first thing to consider is that Gestalt is sometime described as "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" in photography terms to me this says that when you look at a photo you have to take in the whole scene to understand the subject, but then as the photographer you have to be far more considered when framing a subject because you're looking to capture an image with many layers of meaning in that you have your subject but you also need the surrounding area/background to have some relationship to it so as to add to the shot in some way. Another way to look at it is that lets be honest we live in a very chaotic world and sometimes the thing we shot can appear equally so but by using some of the laws set out above we can bring a little calm back and let our inner eye more easily understand and interpret what we've captured.

I know its more psychology then photography but when you study other peoples work with these laws in mind you can see how they work and improve the feel of an image straight away, some of these thing I've already been doing subconsciously because i know what looks and feel right but now actually knowing why i frame a subject in a certain way or group a particular group of focus points together kind of adds a deeper understanding to my work that i was clear lacking before hand.

Found good website with more explanation on Gestalt at- www.users.totalise.co.uk/~kbrown/lectures/gestalt.htm

(All images taken from Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology)

Balance and Imbalance.

A nice easy place to start just to get the creative juices flowing once more with this course is with a piece of work centred around the idea of Balance and Imbalance within an image. This is ground cover in a number of other courses but it's never bad to practice theses compositional skills as you never know what you might pick up for example a new way of looking at a familiar scene just by changing the composition of the subject slightly. In the first instance i looked at creating 3 balanced images (the easier part by far), to me i find creating balance in frame relatively straight forward these days but i didn't always find this so. As with everything practice over time helps build confidence in what you're trying to achieve.

In this first image i achieve balance by sandwiching the dark area of the sea between the light sky and the stone work and sun dial at the bottom. Also because all the lines in the view are relatively horizontal it helps increase this feel of balance and calm because the view doesn't seem busy and disorganised.

In my second image what I've used is the lines of the petals that draw the eye to the central focal point while also the reds and yellows being complementary colours add to this effect of balance. The symmetry of the view also helps alot.

My final balance image relies completely on the pattern/repetitive nature of the pine cone structure to produce the effect I'm looking for.

Moving onto my Imbalanced image was where i did have some small problems mainly because it isn't as easy as you first think to produce this kind of effect, you think that a bad composure is a good place to start but what i soon found is that this just isn't good enough you have to be even more creative to capture imbalance in a seen.

At first glance you take in the fact that this view seem very balanced with the diagonal lines all running in the same direction and the nice focus blur created by an f stop of about 9, but when you look closely and see that the actual focus of the shot is the Ladybird i feel it gives the shot a more of an unbalanced feel because the focus is so small against the larger background.

Here I'm relying on the wall lines which create quiet alot of disorder throughout the frame because first you have the main wall which appears to be falling away down the slop out of the frame then you have all the other wall lines in the background which run in all number of different directions producing confusion and very little pattern.

My final shot i think is the best illustration of imbalance because the two pathways create a kind of optical illusion in that your eyes feel as if there being pulled in two directions and your mind doesn't know which way its meant to look.

As I've said the first part i found quiet straight forward but the imbalanced half i found much more testing plus I'm not 100 percent happy with the end results. Possible this will be something that i can continue to work on as i move through the course but either way an enjoyable start.

The Start Of A New Course.

So here i am again faced with the start of a new course and the usual worries that come with it after my first flick through the course material, do i understand the theory/principles that are being set out, can i be as productive and creative as I'd like to be, being a level 3 course is my work really up to this standard and even have i picked the right tutor to work with! After my moment of panic and the return of some form of sanity i can fall back on the experiences from working through other OCA course to know that they always seem a little overwhelming to begin with but when i actually sit down and take my time and read through it properly a couple of time i know that I'll be more then alright, and as for the rest only time will tell but with my tutor selection I'm sure I'll be OK as I've work with her in the past and found her to be focused and dedicated with a real love for the subject (which is never a bad thing).

What i want to get out of the course is further improvement in my work and to continue developing my own style. With the way the course appears to structured this should be possible because there's nowhere near as many projects to complete so i get more time to focus on the Assignment side. I did find in the last course i did that some of the project work seem to be repeating itself which got a little dull after a while. Also i need to improve my research as my work can sometimes be a little lacking in this department but its a vital part of the learning experience. So here's to the next 6-12 months who knows what it'll bring.