Geometry in Photography

PHOTO CHALLENGE | No matter what you’re shooting, there are most likely shapes involved in the scene. Being mindful of geometry, of shapes, pushes you more than most other photography elements to see composition, but is an incredible thing to “see” in photography.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer that studied composition and geometry and was endlessly fascinated with it. You can see his geometric compositions in his photos, a simple Google search will identify this theme easiest.

I enjoy the element of geometry in photography because of the drama, modernism, and often, the historical representation. Geometry is the experience of a person's field of vision becoming partially or completely encompassed by fast-moving, colorful, and indescribably complex geometric patterns, form constants, shapes, fractals, and colors.

Scale ultimately plays a part in geometry in imagery. You often need something secondary in the image to imply scale, to exaggerate proportion. You can also fragment an object (cut an apple) or give a sense of symmetry. Depth of field can enhance prominence and give a psychological impact to the viewer. Light vs dark can also be used to emphasize this technique.

Like many of our past prompts, look for textures, patterns, lines, color, repetition, and space. You’ll undoubtedly see overlap in many of your photos. Like photography styles, if you are at all confused about the geometry in a photo, your viewer will be too.

Geometry can be incredibly obvious (window squares, architecture), abstract, or subtly. I find that geometry in nature is very subtle, forcing the viewer to scan the image to see what the photographer saw. At first approaching this concept for photography, I felt overwhelmed and unsure if I could find geometry in a way that wasn’t so cut and dry. I didn’t want abstract and modernist art, I wanted to find it in every life. Street photography and architecture are the simplest ways to find shapes.

“This interrelationship between forms is almost always impermanent, and thus great intuition and sensitivity are required to frame and seize the arrangement at a precise moment. Cartier-Bresson believed that an individual was either born with the ability to comprehend these three factors in unison or they were not; it was not something that could be taught.” (source)