Gestalt is a way of designing things so that they have both unity of design while still having variety (much like the "style" people often speak of when describing a photographer). Gestalt is much more general than photography itself, but it's very applicable to photographic composition.
The theory of Gestalt deals with how the mind processes the very complex visual world and in photographic terms this can be discussed under several key concepts, namely:
Closure:
This deals with how the mind supplies the missing parts of an image, e.g. if you have an image of half a face, the mind automatically completes the missing pieces. This is satisfying for the audience and let's them complete the images and makes them more interactive.
Continuance:
Once you start looking in a direction, you'll keep looking in that direction until you find something interesting - most commonly this is described as lead in lines. The direction of the continuance is important too: a western viewer likes to read from left to right so lead in lines in that direction are more easily read.
Similarity:
As we mentioned earlier the visual world is very complex and the mind has a limited capacity to deal with objects, to overcome the mind tries to simplify, by grouping objects together. Objects are grouped by similarity and by position, so this can work in two ways - easily grouped objects are pleasing but individually forgettable, while dissimilar items can't be easily grouped and this serves to emphasise their difference.
How are items grouped?
Firstly by size, then by shape and then colour or brightness(value).
Size: if objects are a similar size, then get grouped even if shapes are different.
Shape: similar shapes are easy to group, even if sizes are different.
Colour: similar colours get grouped even if textures are different
Value: items with similar brightness values get grouped, even if they are different sizes/shapes.
Proximity:
Often described as juxtaposition, proximity is a way of placing objects so that they have a relationship with each other, relationships of proximity tend to be dominant over those of similarity, but when both are used together very powerful visual relationships can be suggested.
There are different types of proximity relationships: close-edge, touch and overlap, each has a different strength of effect.
Close-edge: Gives some visual tension as there is a "gap" between edges.
Touch: This is where the edges touch, this gives a stronger proximity relationship.
Overlap: This is where one object overlaps the other and gives the strongest proximity relationship (as they appear closest and thus are easiest to group).
So we can see how Gestalt theory can help us understand how the viewer interprets a photographic image and how the position, relationship (shape/size), colour and brightness of individual components of a composition have a huge effect on how well the image works.
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Digitalis are a small team of photographers who specialise in producing high quality bespoke images for our clients. Based in Cork and Tipperary, the team covers a wide geographic area. We specialise in Weddings, Portraits and Fine Art photography, but as you'll see from our gallery we do some commercial work as well. To relax, we enjoy wildlife & nature photography.
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Gestalt Theory
Gestalt theory is the psychology of visual communication, as you might have guessed it's a german word that loosely translates as "whole" and "form".
