Art of Photography: Project 26

This project focused on triangles. Triangles occur much more frequently than rectangles and are not as restricting. During the project I learnt that triangles are more dynamic than rectangles as they are usually made up from diagonals, which similar to diagonal lines, have associations with movement.

Of particular interest to me was reading how triangles can be formed from just two sides, or sometimes even one, with the edge of the frame making up the other sides. In this way impressions of triangles can be formed easily and used effectively in composition and the potential is there for a lot of creativity. This also ensures triangles appear quite frequently.

Another reason triangles appear a lot is due to perspective. As I have already learnt linear perspective causes many lines in photographs to converge on a point in the distance, which naturally causes triangles. Examples of this are a road heading into the distance, looking up at tall buildings or trees, and looking down from above at converging lines. With this knowledge it is easy to enhance effects and perspectives and create triangles and interesting compositions.

Triangles can also be implied as with other shapes and lines, and any three points in any position (as long as they are not touching) will form a triangle. This is another reason that triangles are easy to find in photography. I enjoyed the examples of this, using groups of people to form triangular shapes, and I can begin to see the creative potential of triangles.

The project required six photographs to show examples of triangles.


The first photograph is of a real triangle.


The second photograph is a triangle formed using perspective and converging lines at the top of the frame.


The third photograph is an inverted triangle formed using converging lines and perspective.


Here a triangle is formed using a still-life arrangement of 5 objects (as points).


Another still life but forming an inverted triangle.


The final task was to form an implied triangle using a group image of three people. I only had two and not much time or space to do it, but I tried to create a silhouette of a triangular shape.