Photography Article Texture: elements of visual design, part 4|Photography Artist Statement

This month'sBoost Your Photography: 52 Weeks Challenge is focusing in on the basic elements of composition: line, shape, form or volume, texture, and color. This week your challenge is to pay attention to texture. See how thinking about texture can help you grow in your photography. (Click here to read part 1, The Line,part 2, Shape, and part 3, Form or Volume.)

Texture

My favorite definition of texture comes from Michael Freeman's The Complete Guide to Black and White Digital Photography, "Texture is structure and form on a small scale, meaning small relative to the view. And, because a texture is, by definition, something that is reasonably consistent over a substantial area of a surface, it is usually a repetitive structure" (page 54).

Just like form and extent, texture is regularly emphasized via strong, directional mild. This kind of mild creates harsh shadows, bringing emphasis and interest to the variations in the feel of your problem. The photograph above, of the peeling paint, turned into shot beneath diffused, cloudy mild, so there's no obvious course in the mild and no harsh shadows.

By comparison, the picture above turned into shot underneath strong, direct daylight, and you could see the deeper shadows inside the ridges. Had the sun been coming from a decrease side angle, in preference to nonetheless pretty excessive overhead, the impact could have been even more potent.

Backlighting is some other potential manner to emphasize the texture of an item. With backlight, the mild supply is placed without delay in the back of your subject, relative to the camera. This fashion of backlighting produces what's referred to as "rim mild" or mild this is shining around and through the rims of your situation. This fashion of lights works pleasant to highlight the texture of fuzzy topics and edges, just like the chenille plant above.

Texture is also an thrilling detail to pursue at a macro or near-up level. The nearer in you get to your concern, the less difficult it's far to see and capture thrilling versions in texture. With the leaf, above, a close-up shot well-knownshows the diverse veins and ridges of the inner structure of the leaf. With the penny underneath, you may definitely see the special layers that make up the embossed design.

How Will You Use Texture?

Keep your eye out for interesting textures this week. Seek out different lighting situations and see how the texture appears to change. Share a link or a photograph in the comments below, or consider joining the BYP 52 Weeks Google+ Community to share your weekly photograph and see what others are capturing.

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