Triangular Photography

Some of my most successful photos share a similar composition – arranging the points of interest in the photo in a triangular arrangement.

In ‘Blue Heron, Golden Evening’ the shapes of two prominent distant mountains is repeated by the branch in the water, each forming a point of interest, with the third and primary point of interest additionally accentuated by the heron silhouette.



In ‘Hairtrigger Lake and Albert Edward’, not only is the shape of Mount Albert Edward juxtaposed with its opposite in shape & colour, Mount Regan (a beautiful natural partnership!) but the third main point of interest - the pyramidal rock in the lake - is evocative of another mountain in miniature. There are other triangular relationships within the photo: the counterpoints of the dark shapes of the trees and their reflection in the lake for example.

The viewer’s eye is carried from point to point of interest giving an otherwise peaceful scene the energy of implied movement.

Triangular composition is related to the well-known ‘Golden Section’ proportions of classical Greece. Leonardo da Vinci also described these ideal proportions in terms of the human body.