Tension leads to more attention.
Unless you’re shooting strictly for yourself, the goal, at least for me, is to keep the viewer around for as long as possible.
There’s several ways to achieve that, and I work the ways with my students both in my online classes with the BPSOP, and in my workshops I conduct all over the planet.
I’m not talking about the tension caused by mental or emotional strain, I’m talking about one of the most important ways to keep the viewers attention, and it’s called Visual Tension…more tension leads to more attention.
Although there’s several ways to accomplish it, one of the more lesser known ways is ‘body language’. When you mix it with contrast, you create a conflict between the person’s body language, and the environment surrounding the person.
In the above photo, I saw this woman talking on her cell phone. Hoping that she would stay long enough for me to arrange my composition, I clicked off some shots to get the exposure the way I wanted. Then I kept my camera very close to my eye and waited.
I waited ten minutes and all that time she was still talking. Then, with hope against hope, she gestured for a split second. Fortunately, it was long enough to capture her.
In that moment, her body language created visual tension as well as visual interest. The conflict between her body language, her silhouette, the contrast between her and the lighter gray space all around her is what generates the visual tension.
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagam: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my upcoming workshops at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
JoeB
