In part two of our series on Gestalt psychology and its impact on photography, we examine how the law of past experience and similarity can help us to better define not only what happens behind the camera but also what happens when we are in the editing and critique process.
The law of similarity states that we will group objects and things in an image by how we associate them as one unit. This similarity could be by size, shape, color, texture or some other aspect. As long as our own approach to the information creates an association between the objects, we will associate them as a single group.
The law of past experience allows to see part of an object or subject and based on our prior knowledge of what the object might or might not be, we complete the missing elements of the object or story.