Photography Ideas: Using a Strong Center of Interest to Create Great Images

Looking for some photography ideas that you could use for a photography project? This article presents one such idea: the center of interest.

As photographers, we all like to create images that grab people's attention. The question becomes, "What are the characteristics of these types of images?" Once we know these characteristics, we can use them to capture strong images.

Emotion

One of the most important characteristics of strong images is that they communicate an emotion to the viewer. For example, the image of a firefighter saving the life of a young child, an image of a beautiful sunset over a tropical island, and an image of a war torn village all communicate strong emotion that rivets our attention on the image.

Communicate

That being the case, the next question becomes, "How can we communicate emotion in an image?" Well, one of the best ways to communicate emotion is to create an image that has a strong center of interest. The center of interest is the most important object in an image. It is the object that, when properly composed, draws the attention of viewers.

Being the most important part of an image, the main role of the center of interest is to communicate the emotion in an image. Thus, the stronger the center of interest, the stronger the emotion and the image will be.

Creating Strength

So, the last question becomes, "How can we create a strong center of interest?" Five of the best ways to do this are: identifying emotion, single center, brightness, color, and contrast.

Identifying Emotion: Of course, the most important thing is that the center of interest must personify the emotion that the image is to communicate. As an example, if it is desired to communicate the emotion of the love of a parent for a young child, the center of interest could be a mother tightly holding an infant. In other words, you must first identify the emotion that you wish to communicate. Then, you must find a scene, object, or person that personifies that emotion and make it the center of interest.

Single Center: For most images, it is generally best to have only a single center of interest. This helps to focus a viewer's attention. If there is more than one center of interest, the viewer's attention is split. In many cases, this can weaken an image.

Brightness: Great, you now have a single center of interest that personifies an emotion. The important thing now is to make it stand out. An excellent way to do this is by managing the brightness in an image. The eyes are drawn to the brightest part of an image. By making the center of interest the brightest spot in an image, it will naturally draw and hold a viewer's attention. As an example, the mother and infant previously mentioned could be well lit, but the rest of the image could quickly fall into shadow.

Color: Another way to make the center of interest stand out is to make sure that it contains saturated color. Since saturated color naturally draws the attention of viewers, saturated color can strengthen a center of interest. Another way this can be done is to create a center of interest composed primarily of one color, and surround it with a background of a contrasting color.

Contrast: Like brightness and color, contrast also captures the attention of viewers. With this approach, the center of interest should be high contrast. The rest of the image should be moderate to low contrast. With this method, viewers will naturally be drawn to the high contrast center of interest.

Photography Project

So, why not start a project centered on creating images with strong centers of interest. The goal of this project would be to create images where each image has a single center of interest that communicates an emotion. Then, use brightness, color, and contrast to strengthen the image.