By Mark Myerson

In many walks of life, rules are set to ensure that everyone has an equal chance. Officials keep a watchful eye on proceedings. Participants who gain an unfair advantage are punished.

Photography isn’t like that. It’s a freestyle, anarchic discipline. Once you’ve frozen a moment in time, there is no recourse. You won’t be given a red card for favoring one subject over another.

But that doesn’t mean your images should be one-sided encounters. There is beauty in balance. You can see it in the work of every great photographer.

If you’d like to follow in their footsteps, it’s worth thinking about balance in your photography — and how to achieve exquisite equilibrium.

CHAOS AND ORDER

Balance can be found everywhere in the natural world. Predators almost never hunt prey out of existence. For every drop of rain that falls from a cloud, another evaporates from a large body of water. For every flower, there is an insect ready to provide pollination.