Pattern

If you take a composition and consider all the structural elements within it, perhaps the least obvious to appreciate within it would be pattern. Although we all understand what pattern means, it is kind of hard to see how it is relevant to picture-taking.

There’s patterns all around us – not just on the wallpaper on your screen, tiles on your floor or the shirt you may be wearing. It is found in nature; in the repeated shapes of leaves on a tree, or the rows of plants in an estate . It is found in the bricks of every wall, and even in junkyards. Take how grocery shelves are stacked, or the contents of every item or packet that you find there. Pattern is so much around us that, for most of the time, we just don’t notice it.

And it is this level of comfort that we have with patterns that can be used as a useful tool in compositions. By placing similar or identical subjects within the same frame, we can create a busy image, but the arrangement is still simple enough to result in a successful shot.

You can use the selective viewpoint of the camera so that pattern can be isolated in a such a way that it can be seen afresh. You could experiment to any extent – using a zoom and closing in sufficiently, even a pile of empty bottles or a heap of paperclips can be made to look interesting.

At the same time, pattern that is too uniform, can end up looking rather dull, so you need to find ways to present the pattern in an interesting way. You could use it as just one of the compositional elements to create a backdrop or a foreground that acts as a foil to something else in the frame. You could also look at ways to break down the pattern, for example, a pile of apples could be made more photogenic by using a wide-angle lens and shooting up close so one of the apples appears larger than the others, or you could try putting a red apple in a pile of green apples so that you have an obvious focal point for the picture.

As far as lighting for patterns goes, there is no set, “ideal” lighting for patterns, as this relies on repetition of one or more of the other elements. Whether the pattern relies more on repeating outlines, forms, textural detail, or color will help decide the best lighting setup.