In our last post we looked at how understanding how humans perceive figure-ground can help improve the composition of your photos.  But figure-ground is only the first step.  Humans use other Gestaltian principles when perceiving the visual world.  Mostly these principles are assumptions that allow us to perceive more than what we are actually sense. Hence the name 'gestalt' meaning whole or in other words how we perceive more than what we sense.

Closure
One of these principles is closure.  Here, when faced with incomplete visual information our brain fills in the missing elements.  Knowing them the human brain is a meaning machine photographers can capitalize on this mental activity by purposely forcing the viewer to close off images thus keeping them engaged in the photo for longer.

Gestalt Psychology studies how we perceive the visual information constantly  flooding into our occipital lobes.  This information needs to be processed rapidly and is often incomplete, forcing us to make quick assumptions about our world.  These shortcuts and assumptions are called Gestaltian principles.  Since these principles influence how humans perceive an image, their use can help improve the composition of your next photograph.  

At our recent field trip to the MFA a few of us tried applying these principles to give you examples of Gestaltian Psych in action.

Figure Ground
This is the most basic of visual shortcuts we use. When given an image we quickly determine what is the figure and what is the ground.  Here Jess uses the stark silhouette of the skyline to create a figure on the background of the gray sky.  

In this shot, Jessica's use of the textured background adds interest in the shot without taking attention away from her subject.