Patterns and Repeatetions in Photoigraphy

While repetition in the monotony of daily life can at times be a little boring - capturing it in your photography can create an image with real impact.

Life is filled with patterns - many of which we overlook due to the business of our days - however once you get an eye for spotting them (and it takes being intentional and some practice) you’ll be amazed by what you see and you’ll wonder why you didn’t incorporate them into your photography before.

When it comes to capturing repetition in photography a couple of techniques come to mind - you can either emphasize it or break it.

Let me explain with a few examples:

EMPHASIZE PATTERNS:

Filling your frame with a repetitive pattern can give the impression of size and large numbers. The key to this is to attempt to zoom in close enough to the pattern that it fills the frame and makes the repetition seem as though it’s bursting out (even if the repetition stops just outside of your framing).

Some examples of this technique might include faces in a crowd, bricks on a wall, a line of bicycle wheels all on the same angle etc. Almost any repeated appearance of objects could work.

BREAKING PATTERNS:

The other common use of repetition in photography is to capture the interruption of the flow of a pattern. For example you might photograph hundreds of red balls with one blue one.

Sometimes you’ll find these broken patterns naturally appearing around you and on other occasions you might need to manipulate the situation a little and interrupt a pattern yourself.

Broken repetition might include adding a contrasting object (color, shape, texture) or removing one of the repeating objects.

Pay particular attention to where in your frame to place the break in the pattern. It might be that the rule of thirds comes in to play here.

Also consider your focal point in these shots - the broken pattern might be a logical spot to have everything focussed sharply.

This week I’m setting myself a little assignment to get out and take some shots that emphasize patterns and repetition.

Light Pattern on my office walls : Can you describe???

Going out for Photo-Shoots help a lot

My new learning to improve as a photographer would be to go out and shoot in different situations.

For the earlier part of my venture into the photography hobby, I spent most of my time developing myself indoors. Reading articles, magazines, forums, a basic photography training and blogs. That’s not BAD and I strongly suggest continuing to read and grow in your knowledge of photographic techniques, but the only true way to improve is to put everything we learn and read into PRACTICE. Go out and shoot!

Disregard all fear of what people will think of you as you snap away on the street or at your favorite venue or park. “Oh what a mad guy”, “That camera is not even that great”, “That looks like a cheap lens”, etc. Don’t let others or the price/quality of your equipments set limitations on you! We all have to start somewhere.

I have read it numerous times on the forums and elsewhere. It’s not the quality or price of the camera, but the photographer behind the camera that makes or breaks an image. The only way we can improve our photography is to practice and shoot a lot.

I am an introvert by nature, so going out and shooting random people, street life, and the like is not my strength. I get pretty intimidated when people start staring at me while I take pictures, and self-conscious. On a recent drive, I decided that I need to just break out of my comfort zone. I need to go out and shoot. For last few weeks I have been going out with some of my photographer for shoot in delhi and I feel its helping me in improving my mindset about urban & street Photography.