Photography - Composition
Placing the elements of your picture within the
frame and deciding what to leave out.
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In our modern world of automatic cameras, which focus for us and adjust the
exposure in an ever more perfect way (most of the time),
the biggest difference between a good photograph and a mediocre
one is the compositon.
In every photograph we take, we can decide where the boundaries
of that photo will be, called the cropping.
We can also choose the viewpoint.
If we are taking pictures of people or movable objects then,
often, we also have the opportunity to arrange them into
the shapes we want.
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I use the word 'shapes' deliberately as that is what good photography
is all about, creating shapes and textures that please you.
If you are shooting landscapes or other immovable objects then you must
compose the picture by moving yourself and deciding where to place the
point(s) of interest in your picture.
There are various compositional rules (I prefer to think of them
as guidelines) to help you. These rules will help you to compose
pleasing pictures, however, you will often find that a really
striking picture will show a blatant disregard for the rules.
Once you are aware of the rules then break them as often as you
want but, at least, know you are breaking them and why.
Rule of Thirds
Landscape photographers are particularly fond of this one, but
it works well for many types of subjects. The rule of thirds simply
says that, instead of placing the main focus of interest in the
centre of the frame, which gets a little boring, that you look
to position it on an intersection of the thirds. That is to say
one third up and one third in or two thirds up and one third in
etc.
Here's a 'thirdsy' sort of picture, hold your mouse over the
picture to see the grid. Placing the boat near the top of the picture
tells the viewer that what they are supposed to be looking at is
the reflection.
We could take the boat out altogether, of course, this would focus
our attention even more on the reflection but the picture might
then be a little too minimalist.
Also the mast is almost exactly on the 'third' line. There is a
little space to the right of the bow of the boat which helps to
give the impression that, although the boat is not moving, it has
somewhere to go.
Although a nice illustration of composing 'on the thirds' this
picture falls foul of another 'rule' in that it has very light corners,
escpecially at the top right and, coupled with the yellow stripe,
the effect is to lead the viewer's eye out of the picture. We'll
talk about this more later.
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Using Diagonals
Setting your subject matter on a diagonal will almost always make
for a more dynamic picture. Even if this is an invisible diagonal
that draws your eye between two points. Move around the subject
(not too close in the case of my crocodiles) and look for a diagonal.
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Here's an interesting
article in our blog on landscape composition.
For some
inspirational help with composition try 'Learning
to see Creatively' |
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