Beautifully Captured.

The strategic planning behind a photo with such composition to me takes this photo from intriguing to at a certain level, intimidating.  It is obvious that the photographer was in touch with both the elements and principles of design so, please excuse me while I attempt to exercise my knowledge of the concepts that she so perfectly captured. 

The photo is composed in such a way that the photographer basically holds your hand throughout the entire viewing process. She uses line, color and balance to guide our eyes from the center of interest through the composition in a rhythmic directional movement. The photographer begins the directional movement by using color. By photographing a red boat in a dull greyscale background the red becomes dominant therefore giving our eyes a center of interest. Line is the next element she uses to guide us through the image. Our eyes automatically follow the waters edge and the line of boats into the background of the photo. Notice that the canoes are facing with their pointed tip all in the same direction almost like a line of arrows. Upon changing our focus to the background we notice the color again in the trees. The natural green then offsets the original dominance of the red in order to give us a more peaceful appeal and allows us to "lose sight of the shore" long enough to enjoy the entire photo. Due to the balance of the image our eyes are again guided back to the foreground along the waters edge and this time by the line of cars along the road. We now notice the boat on the right side of the photo and the color of it. Because the boat is blue our eyes automatically jump back to the red boat simply because of the contrast between the two colors and the dominance red has over blue. Now we are back where we started. The center of interest. 

The photographer saw all of this prior to capturing the image but to ensure that the viewer would see exactly what she did, she mapped it our perfectly so that our eyes had no choice but to follow her lead. 

sheer genius. 

D. Whitcomb