focal point/emphasis
The focal point and emphasis of a photograph refers to the one point or object in that photograph that the eye of the viewer automatically focuses on. When a viewer looks at a photograph with a good focal point, the viewer should be drawn directly to that focal point and not be distracted by any other objects in the photograph. When I was taking photographs of focal point, the main focus that I had was to make sure that the focal point was truly where the viewer of the photograph would look first. On the header photo of this page, the eye is drawn straight to the Stand-Up Paddleboard and directly to my son, Charlie’s face. There are two photographs on this page in which our dog, Lulu, is the focal point. In both pictures, the viewer's eye is drawn straight to the dog. In another of my showcase pictures, my daughter made some roses out of Play-doh and asked if I would take a picture of them for my project. At first, I wasn’t sure how I would incorporate them, but then I realized that even surrounded by other objects on the art table, my eye was still drawn to the Play-doh roses, and they fit perfectly into the focal point category. The last focal point photograph is a picture of a beautiful home near my mother-in-law’s house. The eye is drawn straight to the home and is not distracted by all of the greenery surrounding it.