“Photographers have to impose order, bring structure to what they photograph. It is inevitable. A photograph without structure is like a sentence without grammar—it is incomprehensible, even inconceivable. “
– Stephen Shore

Photographs are composed of two main elements; visual and formal. There is something within an image that can be used to convey and enhance meaning, often to do with beauty, photography isn’t unique in most of its formal and visual elements, it strays from other art forms through elements of framing, time, focus, and flatness, something that cannot be achieved through methods such as painting.

The formal and visual elements include:

Light: Which direction is the light coming from? How strong is the light/How thick are the shadows? Is the lighting natural/from studio lights?

Lines: Are any structures creating outlines/lines in the image? Are the lines straight/curved/thick/thin? Are they parallel/perpendicular? Do they create a shape

Repetition: Are there any patterns in the image? Are they created by lines or shapes within the photo? Are there any reflections?

Texture: What kind of surface does it look like the subjects within the photograph have? Rough/smooth? How much depth is there in the composition/shapes?

Shape: What kind of shapes are present in the photo? What are they composed of? Do they create repetition within the image?

Tone: What mood do the colours within the image create? Are there darker/lighter tones dominating the image? Which areas are the brightest and darkest? Is there an equal level of light and dark?

Composition: How is the photograph staged? Is it organised? Does the order/angle create any shapes? Is the rule of thirds present?

Colour: What colours are present throughout the composition? Is the image monochrome or in colour? Do the colours suggest mood/danger/nature/love, etc.? Are they heavily saturated or muted?

Within our pair, we picked out lots of things we noticed in the image with the grid further up this post. We noticed things like there being a lot of square or rectangular shapes or the different tones and shadowing throughout the image. The image is quite a ‘busy’ image as we have mentioned on our analysis sheet and again even though there are lots of different shapes throughout the entire image there seems to be a bit of a pattern with squares or rectangles.