Transform Your Street Photography by Learning the Secrets of What Makes a Great Photograph | Polly Rusyn | Skillshare

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Transform Your Street Photography by Learning the Secrets of What Makes a Great Photograph

teacher avatar Polly Rusyn, Street Photographer

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      2:22

    • 2.

      Ideas, a Blueprint, and Mindset

      8:48

    • 3.

      Introduction to Gestalt Theory

      3:04

    • 4.

      Subject Separation and Proximity

      7:14

    • 5.

      Using Similarity and Repetition

      7:48

    • 6.

      The Principle of Closure

      6:27

    • 7.

      Two-Dimensional Seeing

      5:23

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About This Class

Are you ready to change the way you see the world and compose your images? 

Join me, Polly Rusyn, to learn the formula for a great street photograph and discover how to speak the brain’s visual language when it comes to composition. Go way beyond the boring old classic composition tools and start to see the world radically differently. Once you do this you will never see things in the same way again!

I’m a bit of a geek and have always loved figuring out how things work, and that goes for photography too! And I don’t mean the technical side. When I began doing street photography I was desperate to figure out why some photos worked when others didn’t so that I could improve my own. So I sought out the work of "the greats” and I reverse engineered them, I studied them, and I learned about psychology too. So while street photography is usually seen as an art, I want to teach you the science!

Using examples of my own work you’ll learn about:

  • The Gestalt principles of visual perception and how to apply them 
  • The filter in your brain that can be programmed to fine-tune your observation
  • The power of your frame and how to use it wisely
  • How geometry plays a key role in photography composition
  • How to take intriguing photographs with and without people

Before we dive into all the science I’m also going to kick off the class by sharing with you what I believe is the formula for a great street photo and you’ll get a simple framework to apply to your own work whether it’s at the time of shooting or afterwords when picking your best shots. This first lesson is the longest one because it will give you a great foundation for the rest of the class.

This class is designed for anyone with curiosity, the desire to create, and a camera (and it can be your iPhone!). It’s aimed at beginner street shooters but photographers of all levels can have fun with the principles and the ideas I share. The result will be that you will start to see, think about, and frame the world in new and exciting ways and your confidence in your own creativity will grow.

I believe everything is learnable, and here are the headlines of what you will learn in my class:

Lesson 01: The Secret Formula

The importance of ideas, the blueprint, and a mindset shift

Lesson 02: Brain Language 101

Three men in white coats and the Principle of Symmetry

Lesson 03: Space Invasion

The Principles of Separation and Proximity, and the power of the frame

Lesson 04: Algorithms + Patterns

A magnificent brain filter and the Principles of Similarity and Repetition

Lesson 05: The Magic of the Triangle

The Principle of Closure

Lesson 05: Dimensional Illusions

The Principle of Continuity and street photography without people

Are you in?

Let’s do this thing! Can’t wait to see what images you create.

FULL DISCLOSURE: 

  1. This class does not teach you the basics of street photography practice but you can get and introduction to that in this free guide.
  2. I have a preference for sunny day photography, although some flat light photos are included as examples in the class. However, assignments are achievable in all lighting conditions.
  3. All my photos were shot using Fujifilm XT-2 with a 23mm f2 Fujinon lens, or with a Fujifilm X100V, and processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Music by Penguin Music via Pixabay

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Polly Rusyn

Street Photographer

Teacher

Hello, I'm Polly Rusyn. I'm a photographer, street photography teacher, speaker, author, and former Fujifilm Ambassador.

I'm the author of ‘The Street Photography Playbook’ and ‘The Photo Composition Playbook’ (both available at Amazon as books as well as on the website linked below as digital platforms).

And aside from publishing my own books and zines, I’m one of 100 women showcased in the first ever ‘Women Street Photographers’ book curated by Gulnara Samoilova, a contributor to 'The Travel Photographers Way’ by Nori Jemil, and featured in ‘Reclaim the Street’ by Stephen McLaren and Matt Stuart. 

My work has been awarded and exhibited all over the world at several street photography festivals, and p... See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: What if you could transform your street photography using science? Street photography is candid photography of people in public places. It's super accessible because all you need is a camera and some way to go. But the accessibility of it shouldn't be confused with ease. But he is of course, really easy to take boring photos. But you can change all of that, especially when you're starting out by having a formula and by having some knowledge of how to speak the brain's visual language. Hello and welcome. My name is polyurethane, a diamond street photographer. I hope street photographers take better photos by teaching them how to train their observation and develop their intuitive composition. I run workshops and create resources. So give talks about street photography, judge street photography competitions. And I've created and published to Playbooks. What about street photography and one about photo composition. I love science and I've spent hours deconstructing photographs, figure out why some work and some don't. I created this class to introduce you to my formula for great photo before diving into some science, will begin with an intro into why having ideas is key and how you can use a blueprint to help you when you're out shooting. Then we'll dive into seven Gestalt principles of visual perception over five lessons. During those lessons, I will also teach you the power of the frame and tell you all about a magnificent filter in your brain. By the end of this class, you'll be taking better and more interesting photos. This class is perfect for street photographers who are just starting out. More experienced photographers who might be a bit stuck. And anyone who is curious about the science of thing, you can use any camera at all to join this class. So if you're ready, let's get started. 2. Ideas, a Blueprint, and Mindset: In this lesson, I'm going to share what I believe is the secret formula of what makes a great photo. You'll learn the importance of having ideas. You'll get a blueprint to add those ideas too. And I'm also going to talk about the glue that holds everything together. Your mindset. The first part of the formula is to have ideas. Ideas of what to take pictures off, and ideas of how to compose what you're taking pictures of. And with practice and repetition, the ideas of what photograph will eventually become triggers. Likewise, the ideas of how to compose will become tools that are second nature. The ultimate goal is to train your observation and develop your intuitive composition. Which means that you can react quickly in any situation and compose well in an instant. Now I have a number of things that trigger me. And many of them started out as deliberate ideas of things to shoot. Because it was only when I started to give myself mini-projects of what to look for and photograph that actually started to take better photos. I might use some interesting architecture. Play with mirrors, head straight for any kids playing with bubbles, shoot silhouettes. Find ways to make someone anonymous, or simply tuned into shadows of things and play with those. Now you may be thinking, I don't need ideas. I just react to what's happening in front of me. But what if I told you that you are reacting to ideas, you weren't even aware, you had more of that coming up in less than four. Okay. So while I'm being triggered by things that I'm brainwashed myself to say. I'm also figuring out how to organize them in my frame. That's when I'm tapping into my bank of composition ideas. So any given moment, I'm figuring out in my mind what would work best. It could be the classic rule of thirds. There might be strong leading lines I could use or sub-frames. Perhaps the good old Dutch angle. Maybe I'll get some triangles, or even the Holy Grail with composition, the golden spiral. But don't worry though, in less than five, I'm going to give you the cheat code for both triangles and spirals. So stick around for that. But in the meantime, remember, the more you practice something, the more intuitive it becomes. So you'll not be going through a checklist of competition options in your mind. You will simply get a feel for what will work. Now for the blueprint. Once you have your content triggers and your composition tools, you then need to consider why something deserves to be photographed. Because let's face it, there are a lot of boring photos out there. If you don't want to listen to me and listen to Tony Ray Jones, who once said, Don't take boring photos. You need to ask yourself, why should somebody look at your picture? So this blueprint will help you with the y. And even if you don't consciously apply it when you're out taking pictures, you can always apply it before deciding whether to share it or whether to file it in the trash. So the blueprint is this. Think of the street as theatre. What do I mean by that? Well, you don't go to the theatre to watch somebody texting at a bus stop. You need a show. And it doesn't have to be musical theater. It can be a meaningful monologue, but there needs to be something of interest. And you are the director of the show. You queue, right? The frame. Super-important to know that you actually have far more control over the final image. Then you might think, even though in street photography, everything is candid and then staged, because you choose what you photograph, where you position yourself, how you frame and compose a shot. And finally, it's you who decides the moment to hit the shutter. So how do you put on a show? You need light, whether it's flat light, bright sunshine or artificial light at night. You need to be aware of the direction of it, the quality of it, and what you can do with it. You need a stage. This could be a static stage, e.g. a good backdrop you found, or an ever-changing stage. Because you're either walk in and shooting or there is a lot of activity in the background of the location you are in. And finally, you need the star of the show. The good news is there are only really two types of star in a street photo. So two types of street photo. The first one is the aesthetic photograph. This is all about light, shape, form, color. All of these elements are the star of the show and the people that you include a simply props, maybe their silhouette, a fragment of reflection, but they could be anyone. The photo isn't about them. The second type of photo is the story photograph. This is where it's all about a specific person or people where there's something happening. This could be a gesture, emotion, movement, interaction. Or it's simply some curious situation or an interesting moment in time, something that ideally generates questions. So now that you're aware of content triggers and composition tools, and you have a blueprint of thinking about the street is theatre. Let's quickly talk about the glue that holds it all together. And then I'll set you your first assignment. So let's talk about mindset. As Henry Ford said, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. What you think and what you tell yourself are so important. There is never nothing to photograph. You have to ignore the problem. Not enough people, too many people, nothing happening. And find a solution. First, you have to become aware of the things you're telling yourself and then flip them. Go from nothing to something. I just haven't seen it yet. Street photography is problem-solving. Think of it as a jigsaw puzzle where you don't know what the final picture will be. Most pieces are moving, but all the pieces have a place in the final image, UQ, right? What you include and exclude from your frame. Remember, you are the director of the show. I honestly believe that photos are everywhere waiting to be seen. Of course, wherever you are could be a dud. And the ultimate solution might be to go somewhere else. But first, you have to be sure that you really are in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you need to check your mindset. To summarize, collect ideas for both content and composition so that with practice, you develop triggers and your composition becomes intuitive. Think about the street is Theatre. I remember you are the director of the show. And keep checking in on your mindset. Your first assignment is to take a fresh look at what you think are your best. Three to five images. Ask yourself these questions. Is there any theatre? Did I work with the light? Was I'm mindful of the stage. Is there a star of the show? And is it the aesthetic, or is it the story or a curious moment? In the following lessons, you'll have projects to go out and shoot. But for this one, I want you to assess where you are right now so that you have something to compare to at the end of the course. See you in lesson two, where I will introduce you to three men in white coats. And you're very fast. Gestalt principle of visual perception. 3. Introduction to Gestalt Theory: In this lesson, I'm going to introduce you to the Gestalt theory of visual perception. And we'll get started with the easiest of the principles. Around 100 years ago, three psychologists in Austria studied how the human brain processes visual information. They concluded that our brains massively simplify the vast amount of visual info that we're exposed to. That instead of perceiving all the individual pieces, we group similar things, look for patterns, line things up, and create shapes. And because this is how our brains organize and process visual information, it means that if we compose our images deliberately looking for and including these elements, then we're actually speaking the brain's language. The psychologists call this the Gestalt theory of visual perception. And the word gestalt means hole. Essentially, we perceive the whole picture instead of all the individual elements separately. So on. Everything is well organized in your frame. Then you have a composition that works. Gestalt theory has a number of principles. And throughout this course, I'm going to introduce you to seven of them. Symmetry, separation, proximity, similarity, repetition, closure, and continuity. And in this lesson, we're starting with the first one, which is the simplest one that you're already probably very familiar with. And that's symmetry. You could use a reflective surface to create a classic horizontal symmetry, or use a reflection in glass to create a vertical symmetry, but perhaps play around with making distorted body shapes. You could find a close-up detail of a person that's symmetrical. Or look for two people who are similar and mirror one another in some way. Then you can play with breaking symmetry as well by either placing similar people in the center of an almost symmetrical frame or split your frame into a mirror, things that match but don't actually match. So to summarize, by understanding how our brains organised visual information, we can speak the brain's language. Symmetry can be photographed in a number of ways. And you can get really creative with it and play with breaking symmetry. So your assignment is to find and photograph a symmetrical scene. Start easy by using a window or water reflection. Make it harder for yourself by finding two similar looking people who are mirroring one another. Or really go for it and break some symmetry, but yet still give a bit of an illusion of symmetry. So have fun shooting. And I'll see you in lesson three, where we'll talk about space invasion, which is when I introduce you to the principles of separation and proximity. And also talk about the power of the frame. I'll see you there. 4. Subject Separation and Proximity: In this lesson, I'm going to cover one of the most important principles you need to take on board. Separation. Or as the Gestalt psychologists called it figure ground relationship or FGF. But I'm going to call it separation. Let's dive in. Separation is having your subjects stand out in your image. That means stand out from the background as well as from other people in the shot. The lazy photographers way is to use a shallow depth of field so the background blurs and you don't have to worry about it. But in street photography, it's so much more interesting to shoot with a deeper depth of field and potentially capture multiple stories. So you do have to work harder to achieve a good separation. The key thing to take note of here is that you don't have to fully separate all the bodies of all the people in your frame. Bodies can overlap, but faces should be clearly separated as much as possible unless you're deliberately hiding phases to make your subjects anonymous. Later in the course, you'll see that the principle of continuity is deliberately and d-separation. But for now, we'll stay focused on separating as much as possible. Let's look at some examples. This image is all about the geometry of the architecture and the light. And the human figure which is in silhouette, is purely there to add scale and a human element. But you can see he's got an open stride. So we can tell that that's a human person. In this shot, I've deliberately excluded the wall that would explain the height of the little girl. I wanted to include the man walking in the opposite direction in the background because he adds depth. And also others play on perspective because he looks so small compared to the other people. And with inclusion of the chimney that adds a fifth element. And you can see that everybody is nicely separated from one another. And these coolest of nuns didn't seem to care that I was taking photos of them, taking photos of themselves. So I took four or five shots here without rushing. My goal was to make sure the phone was separated from the building. So I had to make just very small adjustments to my positioning. Now I know that sounds like it's such a trivial detail, but it does make a difference. Now, let's talk about the power of the frame. Everything you include in your frame is your responsibility. And that includes not only the focal point of your photo star of the show, but also any of the extra people in the frame. Everything around the edges, anything poking in from the corners, whatever's in the background, the foreground, how much space there is, how everything is arranged, the balance of elements, everything. If you remember in lesson one, we talked about the street as theatre, where you are the director of the show. And then it's up to you what you include and what you exclude. Anyway, there's something that happens when you place people and things inside a frame. You basically force a relationship onto them. This could be a relationship between strangers, between the subject and the location or between the background and the foreground. What you're actually doing is using the Gestalt principle of proximity, which is that things close together become related to one another. Simplest interpretation of this is that we generally assume people who are directly next to each other to actually be together. But when you place people in the same frame, you make them related. Even if you are separating them. Which means you have to choose carefully who gets included and who doesn't. Because to really make all the people in the frame work together as a whole. You need to also be thinking about other elements that connect them, which we'll be looking at in much more detail in the next lesson. An example of one of those elements though, is color, as in this photograph, for everyone is wearing something blue. Now imagine if there's somebody wearing red, somebody else wearing purple, somebody in green, they would ruin everything. You can actually have a lot of fun as you practice playing with timing as people walk into and out of your frame. And you can tell multiple stories in one picture that look as though they are meant to be in one picture. Using lots of separation between people and groupings of people. Always keep an eye on the background too, such as in this picture, where the door frames don't cut into anyone. Again, it's all about the details. But you can also use the principle of proximity to play with juxtaposition. So this means you can play strangers close together in your frame in order to create comparisons. Simple example is this one with the older male silhouette placed next to the younger, brightly dressed female. Or there's the contrast between the tourists and centurion. One in a baseball hat, one and a helmet, but both looking in the same direction. To summarize, it's key that the star of your shows stands out. So you should always keep the principle of separation in mind. Everything you place in your frame is important because you are creating a relationship between all the elements. You can use the principle of proximity to create interesting juxtapositions. Your assignment this time is to find a photograph people looking for separation between them. And it's okay to have pairings because they become one. I remember. Don't worry if there's a bit of an overlap as long as faces are separated. Start easy with some architecture and wait for a human to come along. Challenge yourself a bit more with having multiple people in the frame. Or look for two people who you compare with the juxtaposition. Or really go for it and try and get as much separation between people and groups of people as possible, whilst maintaining a sort of overall look where they all belong in the same frame. Most importantly, have fun shooting. And I'll see you in lesson four. We will talk about algorithms and patterns, which is when I introduce you to your magnificent brain filter and the principles of similarity and repetition. See you there. 5. Using Similarity and Repetition: If you remember in the previous lesson, I talked about the power of the frame and how you need to also be thinking about other elements that connect the people you've chosen to include. I gave you the example of color. This brings us very nicely to the principles of similarity, also referred to as echoes in street photography, and repetition, also referred to as rhythm. And as visual rhythm. It's essentially opposite to visual noise. They're similar. And I didn't want to repeat myself. I'll teach you these two principles together. But before we dive into examples of these two principles, I want to introduce you to your brain filter. Maybe grab a cup of tea for this. Did you know we are actually being bombarded by millions of bits of sensory information every second. The reason I heads don't explode is because our brains are actually supercomputers. We have a filter called the reticular activating system, or RAS. This filter is basically a bunch of nerves that live at your brainstem. Your RAS is like a gatekeeping superhero relentlessly battling with the crazy volume of sights, smells, sounds, flavors, and sensations that we are constantly being subjected to. Only letting a very small percentage of information through to our consciousness. The rest is either deleted or processed subconsciously. So how does the Ras decide what information to filter? What information should get through to our conscious minds. Well, think of it as your personal assistant. Your *** is designed to please you to show you not only what you believe to be true, but what you want to see. It will show you things that you've had your attention drawn to. Such as e.g. your friend has been talking about a particular movie or book, and then you start seeing reference to it everywhere. That's your RAS. The beauty of this is you can use it to your advantage. You can give it a task and ask it to find something specific. It's your own personal algorithm and you can train it. So you can do this when you're out doing street photography. Choose one idea. Remember how I talked about the importance of ideas and less than one. And let your RAS lose. Your eyes will churn and you will start to see that idea everywhere. Sometimes it takes a few minutes, sometimes an hour, sometimes the day. But it will happen. This is not witchcraft. It's neuroscience. The more you practice, the longer the effect will last, and it becomes part of your programming. In other words, over time, when you are consciously photographing one idea, it becomes subconscious and becomes a trigger. You can test it out next time you go out with your camera or without your camera. Choose one idea around knee. It could be a color, it could be hats, it could be gestures. And just stay very focused on that. And you will start seeing those things everywhere. Whatever you're photographing is thanks to ideas, both from your conscious attention and from subconscious programming. So every experience you've ever had is stored. And that also means every photograph you have ever seen is stashed somewhere deep in your mind. When you find yourself reacting to what's in front view, you are actually tapping into that pool of pictures without even knowing it. Being inspired by images you saw and forgot about. In short, your brain mirrors back to you, evidence of what you feed it. Faded ideas. So let's go back to the principles of similarity and repetition and how we can create connections using these two principles. Let's take a look at some examples. This one was handed to me on a plate. Got identical shoes and matching strides. There's always worth looking down when you're out taking photos. Right here. The women have matching hairstyles, earrings, hair accessories, and they're both looking in the same direction. It actually doesn't matter that we can't see the face of the second woman. Because our brains have probably already decided it will look similar to. So we don't even need to show it. In this example. The similarity is the yellow flowers. Even though they're different flowers, they're yellow flowers. They're creating an overall pattern. And so your brain is actually connecting both the yellowness and the flower nurse, but also, but it's also connecting pattern, the pattern. Now here there are lots of connecting elements. There's the connection between yellow and yellow, red and red between vertical lines, diagonal lines. Also, the shadow being on a diagonal matching the diagonal of the mop. When we have more than two elements that are similar to one another, we start to get repetition creating a pattern like here with the three matching shirts. Three matching has styles, three matching sunglasses and three matching smiles. Here with the matching outfits. But while the outfits and matching the legs themselves are not, they're all doing something different. But that's cool. And we can break similarity and repetition by including an odd one out. Such as hair with these gorgeous green balloons, where you can find this one Harry balloon that's not green. And here we have the repetition of stance, the similarity of color and of shoe style. But we've got horse, horse, woman, with the woman of course, being the odd one out. To summarize, you can train your brain filter like an algorithm and use it consciously to find things for you. By looking for similar things and multiples of similar things, creating repetition. You are creating very strong connections in your frame. And you can play with breaking repetition by adding an odd one out. In your fourth assignment. I want you to tune your eyes to start seeing similar things. Start easy by just looking for colors that are similar or motifs that are similar, such as the yellow flowers, or similar looking people can make it a little bit harder for yourself. If you start looking for multiple similar things or people, and then make it really difficult and try and spot an odd one out. Remember to have fun shooting. And I'll see you in the next lesson. The magic of the triangle, which is the principle of closure. 6. The Principle of Closure: In the previous lesson, we've talked about creating connections using similarity and repetition of things such as color, clothing or motifs. In this lesson, we're going to take that to another level by starting to think about where these similar elements are positioned in order to keep the viewer's eye in the frame. Take a look at this picture first. Everyone is nicely separated and we have the similarity and repetition of the umbrellas. But everyone is align pretty much with their heads being level at the same height. This means the journey the viewer's eye will take is in a straight line and straight out of the frame. That's not to say this is a bad photo. It just means you look at each person in turn. And then you're done. In order to keep the viewer's eye in the frame for as long as possible. You can use shapes. And if you remember from lesson two that one of the ways our brains organized visual information is by using shapes, rail shapes such as geometric shapes and frames, but also perceive shapes such as the green notes in this picture that make a triangle when you join them. This is called the principle of closure. Because the position of the green notes closes the shape and keeps the eyes circling around the frame or triangulating. But that's not a word. Now in this image, we have four people. I'm first of all, I should point out that they all have bits of blue in their outfits. There are lots of patterns that are different, but because they're all patterned in the same color palette, they essentially match one another. So there's lots of similarity and repetition going on in the image already. But let's look at the arrangement of the four people. If you were to draw lines between their heads, you start to create triangles. Similarly, in this image, if you draw lines between the three people's heads, you create a triangle. But you can also draw lines between the trees to get another triangle. So you can think of this in terms of the principles of repetition and similarity that we covered in the previous lesson. You have three heads and three trees. With the crowns, we have even more triangles. Now I know what you're thinking. How do I say triangles when I'm trying to think of the street as theatre, apply Gestalt principles, especially making sure everyone is separated and capture fleeting moment. At the start of the course, I promised you a cheat code. So here it is. Just avoid a straight line between heads. That's all you need to keep an eye on. Make sure all the heads are in different levels. So our zigzagging between them, think of it like drawing a mountain range. Will automatically be creating triangles without having to see each individual triangle and you will have achieved closure. Let's now take a quick look at the golden spiral, the most elusive of composition tools. And to be honest, I think this is actually a very intuitive way of composing based on an understanding of composition. In general. It's usually afterwards that you'd think, hey, I got the golden spiral. But really all it is is a bunch of triangles. They do also make some kind of 3D geometric shape their right. Essentially getting a shot like this is not to even think about the golden spiral. Instead, focus on everyone, on each different layer, the background, the mid ground, and the foreground. And then reposition yourself whenever you need two separate phases. Repositioning yourself could literally be by leaning an inch to the left. Also, you just need to keep an eye on not having too much space between clusters of people so that you can keep them as one group due to their proximity. Finally, let's look at this photograph. And this time I'm not going to draw a yellow lines on it. Just take a look for a few seconds to see if you can see which Gestalt principles have been used here. Pause the video for a moment if you need to. Okay. So the main Gestalt principles at play in this photograph include the principles of similarity and repetition of hand gestures. The principle of closure. Because you can see hands are forming triangles. The principle of similarity of the color red. And you can see that in the dress, the person in the far background, and the paint on the wall. And the principle of closure of the color red because it's forming a triangle. So how many did you get? Did I miss anything? To summarize? If you photograph people at the same height in a straight line, the views I will leave the frame. Creating perceived geometric shapes such as the triangle, will keep the viewer's eyes circling the photograph. You can easily start creating triangles by thinking in terms of zigzags and mountain ranges of heads or other elements. So your assignment is to find and photograph at least one triangle. Start easy with a triangle of color. Up the challenge to photograph at least three people and connect them in any way that you want. Then to make it more challenging, head into a crowded place and see if you can get more than three people and create triangles. Just remember, mountain range. Remember to have fun shooting. And I'll see you in the next lesson. I'm going to show you how to create a dimensional illusions using the principle of continuity and some street photography without people. See you then. 7. Two-Dimensional Seeing: In this final lesson of the course, I'm going to introduce you to the most challenging of the Gestalt principles. The principle of continuity, often referred to as coincidence in street photography. So brace yourself. Principle of continuity is that if one thing is placed in line with another thing, than our brain will join them up and make them one. So this principle is actually a warning. However, in street photography, this principle is played with the idea is to line up unconnected things. Does in fact anti separation, because you want things to blend with one another. This is all about seeing a 3D world. In 2D. You have to be able to ignore 3D depth. Think of it as flattening. Think of it as background and foreground. Being on the same ground. Probably best if I show you some pictures. And I recommend practicing this without people to begin with doing some simple lining up such as hair. The metal structure in the midground is lined up with the forehead of the mural, the woman in the foreground. This is very deliberate lining up. Here. I spent a little while at this window playing with different reflection overlays. And after a little bit of experimentation, I managed to create a continuity of the hand of the poster on the ledge of the reflected building. And likewise, the other hand of the poster leaning against the building. So you can see it's creating this kind of illusion. In this example, I took my time lining up the building in the background with the structure in the foreground, while simultaneously framing the dome within the structure. So you can see I've been flattening a 3D world into 2D. And the images have a subtly surreal quality to them because of the way our brains are making sense of them. So once you've practiced lining of buildings and murals and reflections, you'll start to see this way more naturally. But that can be an adjustment period for this longer than there is for the other principles. Because it is really challenging the way that we see the world. So just keep practicing and then move on to people. Like here. Somehow the stripes lined up. I thought it was a fluke when it happened. And you could argue it is a fluke, but is anything really a fluke? Perhaps when things like this happens seemingly by accident, is because our RAS, remember your magnificent brain filter has gone through the filing system of sensory information in your brain in less than a split second and knows exactly when to nudge you to hit the shutter. Just something to ponder on. This, however, was entirely deliberate because I've trained my brain to compress dimensions. I saw the opportunity when I noticed the umbrellas could look like wings. Initially, I was drawn to her because of her red dress. So to create the illusion of wings, I had to work pretty hard to keep lining things up as I walked behind her. And this is another deliberate play with continuity. And I must admit, I was really surprised to see that this woman was dressed exactly like the building. And I'm not sure she even realized, I got the idea to try and line her up to create this image. I had to make a lot of calculations in my mind to figure out where I need it to be relative to her and what height my camera needed to be at. It was actually a very tense few seconds. To summarize. You can create visually intriguing images by deliberately compressing dimensions. Practice first by lining things up using inanimate objects, structures, and buildings. Once you see the world in 2D, you can get creative by merging people with their backgrounds. And so your final assignment is to go out, find an photograph, anything that lines up. Start easy with the building in the background and something in the foreground. Make it a little bit harder by overlaying reflected elements in glass. And then make it extra challenging by lining people up with background objects. And that's it. That's the end of the course. Thank you so much for getting this far. I hope you've enjoyed it and learned something new that you can add to your photography tool kit. There's a PDF with a summary of all the assignments for you to download and links to some other resources on there as well. Thanks again and happy shooting.