Foundation Skills Course – Week 5 Elements of Visual Design

After a two week break we were back to Mindful Photography this week. Building upon the compositional guidelines we explored last time, I introduced the seven elements of visual design that can be used to consider how a photo can be arranged.

The seven elements are: Shape, Form, Colour, Line, Pattern Texture and Space. We explored some ideas around each one and then I set this week’s task. Every student was assigned one of the seven elements with the invitation to practice using it as their mindful anchor. Not only to create photos that represented the idea, but to come back to the element when they noticed how busy their mind was or how they were striving to create a ‘good’ photo that illustrated the concept. A zen like challenge!

The two favourite photos from each student are below. Can you identify each element they were using?