Monday, September 14, 2015

Balance, Contrast, and Harmony


The picture above stupefied me on many levels and encompasses what I see as embracing balance, contrast, and harmony.  Initially the eye is drawn to the center of the picture with the tree being at the forefront, with mostly the sunbeams drawing the eyes to the light.  It's interesting how the eyes are naturally drawn to the changes in contrast, here being the light.  While in the top right corner of the photo there seems to be an ominous space of darkness leaving the frame.  This evokes all shorts of feel goods like, 'the sun will rise on a new day' or 'the night is always darkest before the dawn'.  The motivational visual of  'it gets better' comes to mind while viewing this.  That means this picture could also play on the psychological sense of the human mind, rendering us a visual to describe how we might be feeling emotionally.

 Contrast is what makes the picture for me.  The dark silhouettes of the trees with the warm yellows in the background draw the eye almost immediately.  Something about silhouettes gives a sense of direction while also leaving a mystery to be answered.

The harmony itself plays easily into the piece with aspect of nature.  Organically I think this picture has an instinctual factor that plays into our psychological make up as humans to grasp a 'bigger picture' element in our lives as we look at landscape pictures, or venture out into nature itself.  We develop a sense of oneness with the earth, so naturally I feel when we see pictures like this, well at least when I look at it, I get that same sense of  'oneness'  or harmony.

 The balance was seen to me by the breaking of light in the background.  What looks to be like an escaping storm cloud in the corner is being almost pushed away by the sun.  This gives a sense of balance because we can't have one without the other.  Without light, how would we know darkness?
Overall this picture just warms me on the inside. It feels as if I'm standing there in front of the tree and physically can feel the sun beams warming my skin.

Photo Credit goes to: Alex

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