Part I
The Basics of Composition
In this part . . .
The difference between good photography and mediocre photography is composition. Until you grasp the ideas behind successful compositions, your photography can go only so far. This part alerts you to exactly what composition is, why itâs so critical for making images, and what skills and equipment you need to begin creating knockout compositions.
Chapter 1
Photographic Composition: The Overview
In This Chapter
Reviewing photographic composition
Developing the skills that lead to great compositions
The world is full of beauty, and the world of photography is full of limitless potential to reveal that beauty. Any particular scene or scenario can be conveyed in countless ways that are equally compelling, and each photographer chooses a composition based on her own unique values and ideas. What a viewer takes from your photographs â how he understands your message â depends mainly on your ability to compose clear and interesting images. Every time you take a photograph, youâre communicating with whoever looks at it, and getting your message across has a lot to do with your fluency in the language of photography.
Some people say that great photographs can be captured with even the cheapest point-and-shoot cameras and that photography is all about the photographerâs eye, not the equipment or technique used. This thought is true on certain levels of standards, but why would you stop at just having a good eye? Photography and composition is about more than just pointing your camera at something that looks interesting. Discovering how to take your good eye to the next level and back it up with a thorough understanding of the equipment and techniques available advances the quality of your photography to much more impressive levels.
In this chapter, I give you an overview of what role composition takes in photography and show you what techniques you can use to improve your imagesâ compositions.
Getting a Grasp on Good Composition
Artists of all types (photographers, painters, architects, musicians, and so on) know that a noticeable difference exists between good composition and poor composition. A viewer may not be educated in photographic composition, but she knows a good photo when she sees it. Similarly, you donât need to understand music theory to differentiate between a good song and a bad song. However, youâre more likely to compose a good song if you understand the theory behind the music.
Understanding what photographic composition is and how it conveys a message to viewers changes the way you take pictures and increases your enjoyment in viewing the work of other photographers. Defining photographic composition
In general, the term composition refers to how various parts come together to create a harmonious whole. When something â whether itâs a photograph, a painting, a room, or any other object â contains multiple elements, those elements automatically develop relationships to one another. For example, where you position the sofa and chairs determines how those items work together (and whether your guests can talk to each other).
More specifically, photographic composition represents the decisions you make when creating an image. It includes everything thatâs in your frame â the rectangular space thatâs represented by your cameraâs viewfinder or your photograph. In a photograph, the way you reveal the relationships between the different elements in your scene makes up your composition.
The following terms are essential to understanding what makes up a scene and what your selected composition represents: Frame: Your frame is the rectangle or square (depending on your cameraâs format) that contains the scene youâre shooting. You canât always manipulate a scene, but you can control how the scene is represented in your frame if youâre properly prepared. Being prepared means knowing which camera angles provide the best results in a given scenario (Chapter 8) and knowing how to use your equipment to get the best results with regard to focus (Chapter 7), exposure (Chapter 3), and arrangement (Chapter 5).
Elements: The elements of a composition are the people, places, and things that make up a scene. Everything included in your frame is an element, including the subject, the details that make up the foreground and background, and any objects, props, or details that surround the subject. In fact, compositional elements consist of anything that can be defined in an image: shapes, forms, lines, textures, colors, tonalities, light (or the absence of light), and space. The arrangement of a sceneâs elements in your frame determines your composition.
Subject: The subject is a person, place, thing, or essence (in abstract images) that gives a photograph purpose. Because an image tells a story about its subject, the goal of a good composition is to showcase the subject. Keep in mind that one photograph can include multiple subjects.
Notice the elements that make up the scene in Figure 1-1 â the snowcapped mountains, the valley with a river running through it, the body of water that the river feeds into, and the cloudy and hazy sky. The mountain on the left side of the frame is the subject in this image.
35mm, 1/250 sec., f/11, 320
Figure 1-1: Consider what each element in your frame says about your subject when deciding to incorporate it or eliminate it.
Because of the composition I chose for Figure 1-1, the mountain on the left-hand side dominates all the other elements in the scene; those elements exist in the frame to tell you more about the mountain itself â that itâs in a cold climate, itâs massive, and it exists in dramatic weather conditions. The various elements in this scene relate to the subject as follows:
The river running through the valley gives a sense of scale. Because the river appears so small in comparison to the mountain, you can assume that the mountain is massive. By positioning the river in the bottom corner of my frame, I allowed space for the mountain to dominate the frame. (See Chapter 12 for more on scale.)
The background is dramatic and ominous. The background gives a sense of depth because of the way it fades in contrast and is consumed by the haze. (You can read more about choosing an effective background for your image in Chapter 9.)
The clouds in the sky give you an idea of the mountainâs elevation. The mountain reaches the clouds and almost seems to divide the sky into two sections. To the left of the mountain, the clouds are much thicker than they are ...
