Elements of Design

Line

Line is the most basic building block of formal analysis.  Line can be used to create more complex shapes or to lead your eye from one area in the composition to another.
The photo above is fairly simple, but a good example of line because of the diagonals.  There are various repetitive diagonals as well, where the value is lighter or darker.  Diagonal lines can lead the eye toward the center or a corner of a photograph.

Shape

Shapes are created when lives are combined to for a square, triangle, or circle.  Shapes can be organic (irregular shapes found in nature) or geometric (shapes with strong lines and angles such as circles, triangles, and squares.)
The picture above shows a series of three triangles, all of which are differing primary colors.  The way the triangles are arranged in a way that creates more upside down triangles out of the background.

Form

Forms are three-dimensional shapes with lengths, width and depth.  Balls, cylinders, boxes and pyramids are forms.
This photo shows a three-dimensional shape.
Value

Value is the degree of light and dark in design.  It is the contrast between black and white and all the tones in between.  Value can be used with color as well as black and white.  Contrast is the extreme changes between values.
The photo above may merely be thought of as black and white, but actually has various shades and tones of gray in both the plant and the background.  There are not only two shades or two colors, but rather many shades of the same color.

Color

Color differentiates and defines lines, shapes, foes and space.  Even black and white images have a huge number of different shades of gray.
Color is the main focus here, having all the colors of the rainbow, which helps to differentiate between the various layers of the pottery.

Space

Space is the area between and around objects.  Increasing or descreaing the amount of space around an object affects the way we view that object.
This picture takes up space in an interesting and unique manner, using various aspects of line and distance to fill up the frame.

Texture

Texture is the surface quality that cn be seen and felt.  Textures can be doug or smooth, soft or hard.  Textures are often implied  For instance, a drawing of a rock might appear to have a rough ad hard surface, but in reality is as smooth as the paper on which it is drawn.
The plant here has various textures which range from the fuzzy fibers on the outer edge to the waxy appearance of the leaf, to the bumpy appearance of the pistol.  By looking at the photograph, one can guess how the object feels.