Drawing the Eye, PHOTO E-BOOK
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DRAWING THE EYE
Ten Ways To Improve Your Craft. None of them Involve Buying Gear.
CREATING STRONGER IMAGES THROUGH VISUAL MASS
DAVID
DUCHEMIN
Author of
Within The Frame
Introduction
his short eBook had the potential to be an egghead exercise in academia. he
concepts of visual mass aren’t sexy ones with cool names like the authoritative-
sounding Rule of hirds. But sexy or not, understanding what draws the eye
allows us as photographers to more intentionally direct the eye, and that’s key to
creating compelling images to which we want others to feel drawn, images that
tell the stories we want to with the best chance of communicating the things we
want told.
What I’ve tried to do here is in the spirit of my irst two eBooks, TEN and TEN
MORE. I have tried to create a book that is for the amateur who already feels
comfortable with the technology of his or her camera, but wants to get down to
the art of creating images that captivate the eye, the mind, and the heart of oth-
ers.
From the beginning it’s important to remember that the idea of visual mass is
a metaphor drawn from physics and as a metaphor it is limited. Try not to get
hung up on how accurate the metaphor is; in fact feel free to ind your own
name for it if “visual mass” doesn’t work for you. What’s important is how this
all afects your photography.
Lastly, before we launch into this stuf, I need to say that the concept of visual
mass is not my own. I’ve encountered it elsewhere in bits and pieces. It might
even be explained more thoroughly and authoritatively elsewhere, but this is my
shot at explaining my understanding of it. he book is divided into four sec-
tions. he irst explains what Visual Mass is and why it even matters. he second
looks at how we can use an understanding of Visual Mass when we shoot. he
third looks at using Visual Mass when we reine our image in the digital dark-
room, and the fourth is a set of exercises to work on this stuf, to put the rubber
to the road, so to speak.
PS. If I have to type the words Visual Mass one more time my hands will get
tired. I suspect if you have to read it once more you’ll just get sick to death of it.
So I’ll use the acronym VM when my hands cramp up.
Viewing Tip
Make sure you’re viewing this in 2-page spreads if you want this to look its best.
In Acrobat go to View > Page Display > Two Up. Also checking “Show Cover Page
During Two Up” will make sure the pages aren’t out of sync.
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“Understanding what draws the eye
allows us to more intentionally
direct the eye, and that’s key to
creating compelling images that we
want others to feel drawn to.”
2
PART ONE
VISUAL MASS EXPLAINED
What is Visual Mass? Why Does it Matter?
In the shortest possible terms, elements in an image are
said to have Visual Mass (VM) when they pull the eye
towards themselves. In fact, it’s more like Visual Gravity,
though in physics mass and gravity are connected. he
greater the gravitational pull on an object, the greater
mass it is said to have. Similarily (though not perfectly),
the more an element in a frame pulls the eye, the more
VM it is said to have. Borrowing this metaphor of gravity
and mass from physics has its problems, not the least of
which is that in physics this stuf is actually pretty precise,
and in photography it’s subjective and heavily artsy fartsy.
Stephen Hawking would not be impressed at what I’m
doing to his science in the name of my art.
More importantly, and this is a product of my own relent-
less insistence that WHY we do things informs HOW we
do them and therefore matters, is not how good the meta-
phor is, but why it even matters in the irst place.
Understanding all this VM stuf matters because it af-
fects what we look at in an image and in what order. It
matters because what draws the eye and which elements
have more mass than others determines how images are
balanced and whether that balance is dynamic or static.
It matters because, to put it bluntly, it afects how the
image looks and how the it feels. And that’s the point of
the whole thing, isn’t it? To create images that look, and
therefore feel, the way we want them to.
“he more an element in a rame
pulls the eye, the more Visual Mass
it is said to have.”
4
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