lens-artists: two rectangles

This week’s lens-artists challenge is sponsored by Egidio (Through Brazilian Eyes) who writes, “By two rectangles, I mean you have two dominant rectangular areas in your image. For many people, this is one of those compositional tools we use without thinking about it. These rectangles give balance, harmony, and unity to a composition.”

Egidio shared a compositional tool used by Renaissance artists, “Renaissance artists used the technique called the Rabatment (also known as rebatement and rabattement) of the rectangle. One can think of Rabatment as putting a square inside a rectangle. Your composition is more potent when your subject falls on that line inside the square. The Rabatment concept helps guide the photographer’s eye to position elements harmoniously and organized within the rectangular frame. It’s not a rigid rule or grid but a tool to achieve a pleasing composition.”

11 thoughts on “lens-artists: two rectangles”

  1. Brenda, what a fantastic post you created! Your photos are beautiful and clearly show the use of rectangles. The first image is so striking. You used light and shadow to highlight the rectangles. In the other photo, you showed how the Rabatment of the rectangle was precise in putting the subject where it would grab the viewer’s eye. Excellent post and photos!

  2. in the top image I like how the bottom left corner of window and top right of shadow link by eye and all because the black blank space directs it that way – very good use of this perspective

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