Adding story to photos
Adding more subjects in your photos will result in a better story, writes Salliza Salleh
ADD story to your photograph by incorporating more than one subject in your frame. Group them and create a sense of belonging through the use of close proximity. The law of proximity, as one of the seven Gestalt laws of grouping, says that humans perceive subjects that are close to each other as part of the same subject.
This is because our mind sees the whole subject as one before the individual parts.
All objects regardless of shapes, colour, sizes, texture, nature, etc, will always be perceived as a group if they are put close to each other.
Here are some tips on how to include the law of proximity in our photographs.
1. VISUAL EFFECT: Subjects put closely side by side give the assumption of a “suggestive” relationship. In this aerial photo of a Kuala Selangor padi field, I captured part of the paramotor tyre with a house next to it and another paramotor pilot properly positioned in the middle of a well-lined landscape. It evokes a false sense of scale that attracts viewers to linger longer on this image.
2. ISOLATE SUBJECT: Proper arrangement of the positive and negative space helps to intensify the proximity “feel” between the subjects. Your choice of lenses helps isolate the subject from its negative space. A telephoto lens with wide aperture will compress the subjects to be closer to each other while a superwide lens will help emphasise the positive over the negative space effectively. In this photo of Roni with his horse at Mt Bromo Indonesia, I used a 14-24mm f/2.8 lens and positioned the subjects close to each other in the middle of the frame to emphasise the positive space.
3. LACK OF PROXIMITY: Lack of proximity creates a sense of distance or detachment between our subjects. Having one subject placed in a corner and another at other corners in our photograph suggests that both subjects are not closely related. In this photo, the butterfly is seen drying its wings next to its cocoon. The gap between both subjects suggests that the butterfly is leaving its old home and both may no longer be related to each other.
4. INTRODUCE RELATIONSHIP: Position the subjects close to each other, either side by side, up and down or front to back (overlapping). Objects placed close to each other promote a presumerelationship. In this photo of a
Khazakh mother and daughter in Mongolia, Aruka snuggled comfortably in her mum’s arm, suggesting a warm and loving relationship between them.
5. INVADING PROXIMITY: Foreign objects placed close to a subject could interfere with the subject as our mind interprets them as if they belong together. In this photo of a Mursi man of the Omo Valley Ethiopia, the objects behind his head make him look like he is wearing extra accessories, which is not part of my visual intention. Pay attention to the scene in front of you before pressing your camera trigger as proximity can affect the photograph.