The Best of Wedding Photography.pdf - Free

Three very simple images and a bold graphic set up the interplay of motion, tension and balance. This is gifted design. Notice how the small but
bright red rose achieves visual prominence, but is balanced by the letter G, which not coincidentally, has the same tilt as the rose. Diagonals, which
are powerful elements, contrast verticals and vie for your eye’s attention. Photographs and design by Yervant.
to create visual motion—the eye follows logically arranged
lines and shapes from one point to the next across two
pages.
Greater interest can be attained when a line or shape
that is started on the left-hand page continues through the
gutter, into the right-hand page and back again to the lefthand
page. This is the height of visual movement in page
design. Visual design should be playful and coax the eye to
follow paths through the visuals on the pages.
Direction. Remember that, in Western civilization, we
read from left to right. We start on the left page and finish
on the right. Therefore, good page design starts the eye at
the left and takes it to the right—and it does so differently
on every page.
Image Sizes. When you lay out your album images,
think in terms of variety of size, sometimes called modulation.
Some images should be small, some big. Some
should extend across the spread. Some, if you’re daring,
can even be hinged and extend outside the bounds of the
album. No matter how good the individual photographs
112 THE BEST OF WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY
are, the effect of an album in which all the images are the
same size is monotonous.
Variety. Variety can be introduced by combining black
& white and color—even on the same pages. Try combining
detail shots and wide-angle panoramas. How about a
series of close-up portraits of the bride as she listens and reacts
to the toasts on the left-hand page, and a right-hand
page of the best man toasting the newlyweds? Don’t settle
for the one-picture-per-page theory. That’s very old
school and it’s static and boring.
Visual Weight. You can create visual tension by combining
dissimilar elements (big and small, straight and diagonal,
color and black & white). Try different things. The
more experience you get in laying out the images for the
album, the better you will get at presentation. Study the albums
presented here and you will see great creativity and
variety in how images are combined and the infinite variety
of effects that can be created.
Tension and Balance. Just as real and implied lines and
real and implied shapes are vital parts of an effective de-