What is Formalism?

Formalism is the design, composition and lighting of the subject. It describes the critical position that the most important feature of a work of art is its form, the way it is made and its purely visual aspects, rather than its narrative content or its relationship to the visible world.

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

The 7 basic elements to photographic art are;

• Line

Lines in photographs can be straight, curved or both and can be presented in many different ways. They can appear in man-made things and natural and can be captured on purpose or by chance.

• Shape

Shapes are created when a line, or more, conjoins or closes off. Shapes in photographs may be familiar or unique, unfamiliar shapes which draw your attention. Shapes are everywhere in photography, everything is a shape.

• Form

Form is when you take the two-dimensional shapes and turn it to three-dimensional. The two types of form are geometric and organic, this is the same for shape.

• Texture

Textured can be described in many ways, such as, smooth, rough, wet, bumpy and more. Photography presents the textures in a way that can be ‘felt’ with the eye.

• Colour

Colour has three properties, these are: hue, value, and saturation. Hue is the description of what colour something is (red, blue, pink etc).Values the brightness or darkness of the colour. Lastly, saturation is the intensity or purity of a colour. The purest colour is a hue with no white, black, or grey added to it.

• Size

Size in photographs is relative and can be an illusion. Different size types are large, medium and small. The size of objects in photographs can be manipulated to look bigger or smaller.

• Depth

Most photos have a foreground, middle ground, and background. The stronger the portrayal between those successive “grounds,” the stronger the sense of depth is in the image.