A Short Word on Composition and Design; Elements

In photography as in any other visual art form we use the medium to its best effect as a device for communication . Photography is almost always used as a recording device, but just as music is recorded and the recording itself does not in any way affect the meaning behind the song so should our "photographing" not hinder or block out our photographs.
Bored to death yet? Let's continue, mwuhahahaha...

We as photographers, use physical elements from the visual world that are presented to us, or that we create through the use of some visual medium, that reflect,  or otherwise represent these elements of visual design and principles of design and composition: [Each has its own inherent visual cue(s) that work for a very broad number of human beings as archetypical imagery, meaning that they hold much the same meaning from one person to the next].

• Line (straight, curved, curvy, curly, wavy, ziggity-zaggity, diagonal, horizontal, and vertical) 
• Shape (square, round, oval, triangle, rectangle, and all the gons, and hedrons and so on) {we photofolk tend to especially like rectangles and triangles}
• Texture (rough, smooth, slippery, bumpy, silky, fuzzy, etc DO get carried away with these!.)
• Color (red, blue, etc. The psychological effects of color are well documented and can and should be employed by photographers to great effect in visual communication)
• Tone or Value (The Dark Side, The Light Side, and my favorite, the In Between Side)
• Size or Scale (size matters! The scale of elements within the image in relation to both or either, the boundaries of the image plane itself or other elements sharing the space, OR the scale of the actual piece of finished artwork in relation to the human [we can be so egocentric, don't you think?] can really change a lot of the way that we interpret an image overall)
• Space (be it positive or be it negative, it is space and it fills each frame entirely, positive space is occupied by something or someone, everything else is negative space, we generally use three dimensions of space to create a piece of artwork which exists only on a two dimensional plane)
• Form AKA: Volume (how three dimensional something appears to be , it pretty much allows us to see the difference between an outline of an arrow and a shovel, a ball vs. a Frisbee, a can vs. a flat metal thing with a picture of peas on it, yo mama vs. my mama, wait no one wins there) 

  Ok so just knowing that these things exist and are used by effective artists through every visual media from painting to sculpture, to architecture, and even photography, helps,...some.
Think about all the words above that describe the different types of each element, and how many of these words have two or more meanings, or break out the old thesaur-usaurus and look up some of the words like rough, round, dark. positive, etc. You will begin to notice that a lot of these words translate directly to words that are used to describe feelings or emotional response of some kind. Even things that don't seem to have double meanings as words, still have certain feelings attached. I think most of us would agree that a triangle is much "faster" than a square. This is due to the fact that diagonal lines imply motion, like a tree falling over. Or that a darker green is much more calm than a florescent orange, but a lighter green is much more fresh than a darker one.
 The big help is when you start to realize those archetypes and psychological reactions to these elements. Then you can use them most effectively to communicate your message to your viewer as concisely as possible.
In my next post I will delve into some of these elements and talk a little more about how we use them, and then we'll be on to the principles.
We will get to the photography stuff soon, promise.