In this lesson: Find out how to utilize patterns to improve your compositions

Learning to recognize and photograph patterns helps you create a sense of interest in your images.

Color, lines, forms, and other elements of visual composition often combine in nature, architecture, and other aspects of our world in ways that create patterns. These patterns can be used to create a strong sense of interest in an image.

For example, looking at the sample image of the blue flower, the manner in which its petals are arranged gives the image a significant amount of depth, even though the flower fills the frame and we have little other information regarding how big or small the flower is. But, that’s the power of patterns – it makes this small, relatively featureless photo feel vast and expansive.

Patterns can also be used to move the eye from one point in a photo to another. Look at the sample image of the building. Note how the repeating pattern of the roof supports helps move your eye from left to right in the image. Notice as well that the pattern created by these supports – areas of light and dark that alternate from foreground to background – also give this image a great deal of depth.

By deliberately looking for patterns, you train your eye to look at scenes with a more creative tilt, much like we practiced in the previous lesson on photographing the letters of the alphabet. As a result, you can learn to recognize patterns more easily, compose your photos to feature patterns, and use lighting and exposure to enhance patterns such that they convey a strong visual effect in your images. You can even make something as mundane as the water in a pool take on a much more interesting persona by identifying and using patterns to your advantage.

Challenge Activity

Today’s challenge activity asks that you find and photograph patterns in nature and man-made objects. Work with compositional techniques like perspective and framing to manipulate the patterns to maximize the effect.

Step 1: Identify a pattern in natural surroundings, architecture or any other environment. This can be something as simple as the grain in a piece of wood or something as complex as the aerial view of farmland in the sample image included in this lesson.

Step 2: Consider how to adjust your point of view to best utilize the pattern in an image. For instance, the aerial view of the fields is advantageous because it gives us insight into the sheer size of the pattern below. Conversely, in the sample image of the flower, taking an up-close position helps to highlight the pattern and minimize any distractions in the background.

Step 3: Photograph the scene with a small aperture setting to ensure sufficient depth of field for the effect of the pattern to remain constant.

Step 4: Repeat the steps above in other settings until you easily recognize patterns and can employ them to add impact to your images.