Composition
Your "subject"
One of the most important aspects of thinking about composition is that it helps us clarify what the subject of the photo is.
Begin to think about your viewer- what are they supposed to be looking at? If they can tell easily for themselves that is one reason they will prefer a particular shot.
Approach taking images by deciding what you want the focal point of the photo to be. This point can then be positioned in the frame in a particular place to help show it off best or tell the story of the subject. The arrangement of the subject in frame is called the composition and there are some expectations and suggestions you can learn to employ.
Begin to think about your viewer- what are they supposed to be looking at? If they can tell easily for themselves that is one reason they will prefer a particular shot.
Approach taking images by deciding what you want the focal point of the photo to be. This point can then be positioned in the frame in a particular place to help show it off best or tell the story of the subject. The arrangement of the subject in frame is called the composition and there are some expectations and suggestions you can learn to employ.
Filling the frame
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Below are examples of bold, simple composition called filling the frame.
Your subject is really clear as it takes up most or all of the picture. Look for opportunities to use a single object or tight group as your subject for filling the frame. |
Often confusion comes from using a Landscape scene as your subject, it will of course fill the frame, but as it is made up of many smaller parts it wouldn't in my view be accurately labelled as filling the frame. The best landscape scenes rely on other compositional tricks to help guide the viewers eye over the whole subject and to a more specific, smaller focal point. |
Rule of thirds
This is a really well known piece of advice and while I would argue its not ideal for every subject (no "rule" ever is) its a great guide for thinking about the weight and balance of your image. You may have noticed often a camera screen has the option to have this 3x3 grid overlain- this is what it is for. Try to align the most important parts of your scene with those lines (moving your subject away from dead centre) where the two lines cross makes a particularly good focal point. If you look at the left example below it show a way this method can work well- by offsetting a subject in one corner with another diagonally opposite.
Leading Lines
Natural perspective means lines running away into the distance narrow to eventually form a point. Our eye sees this as an arrow and when looking at the shot we tend to follow that line wherever it leads. The best idea then is to harness this power, ideally align it so you have the 'leading line' point at your main subject, certainly have the line flow into (rather than out to the side of) the picture. Beware of the opposite situation, a line running along one edge of the image can distract away from the focal point.
A frame within a frame
Look for opportunities to cause your viewer to look through / passed something to see the real subject behind. The frame you make can be subtle (an overhanging branch) or explicit (a window frame) either way serves to add depth to your image and re-enforce what the viewer should be looking at. In art history this concept is referred to as repoussoir alongside 'foreground interest' below.
Foreground interest
Often when photographic a wide scene, such as a landscape image, all of the content is quite far from the camera; this is a reminder to try to use all of the frame whenever possible. Adding something of interest near the front of the shot gives depth and variety to the image.
