Category: Composition

One of my favorite holiday traditions in my family is when we go to the Distillery District in Toronto (when we are visiting our family who lives there) and visit the little Christmas Market they run there. The green metal facets on the heavy brick building on the left matches (colorwise) the lit Christmas tree on the right, with the overhead sign connecting them. Warm string lights contrast against the cold gray sky. Solid, permanent architecture stands above the temporary decorations and moving crowds below. There’s also balance between big and small. The grand overhead lighting and tall buildings create scale, but the actual experience happens at ground level where individual people walk around. I think this photo demonstrates a balance between warm and cool colors, while also balancing filled and negative space.

I would say that out of all of the photos I have taken so far for this class, this prompt posed the greatest challenge: symmetry. And, on top of that, I had to incorporate some sort of landscape into the photo. I was immediately drawn to this staircase (if you can even call it that) because of the plants. The way they had been trimmed and laid out created such a satisfying symmetry, while also providing visual contrast between the pale greens of the leaves and the rich orangey-reds of the bricks. The balance in colors ended up being one of my favorite parts of this image, as I find it really adds to the cohesiveness that symmetry demands. I ended up enjoying the challenge of having to search for a scene/composition that was naturally symmetrical to take a photo of, most because it really forced me to pay close attention to my surroundings.