What is Composition
Put simply, composition is how the elements of a photo are arranged. A composition can me made up of many different elements, or only a few. It's how the artist puts those things within a frame that help a photograph become more or less interesting to the viewer. A good photograph will take many different parts and combine them into an aesthetically pleasing whole. Composition is how an artist tells a story within the confines of a single frame.
Rules of Composition
The Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is one of the main “rules” in art and photographic composition and stems from the theory that the human eye naturally gravitates to intersection points that occur when an image is split into thirds. I’d like to note that I’d rather define this compositional technique as a guideline rather than a rule, but for the sake of consistency with other photography sources, I’ll continue to call it the rule of thirds.
Rule of Thirds Definition
In the rule of thirds, photos are divided into thirds with two imaginary lines vertically and two lines horizontally making three columns, three rows, and nine sections in the images. Important compositional elements and leading lines are placed on or near the imaginary lines and where the lines intersect.When taking a photograph with the rule of thirds in mind, it’s always best to compose the photograph in the camera. This is so that you can avoid cropping later to retain as much of the image as possible and avoid reducing the quality of your photographs. However, I encourage going back to some of your older photography and seeing if you can improve them by cropping in a way to make them use the rule of thirds technique.
Rule of Thirds Definition
In the rule of thirds, photos are divided into thirds with two imaginary lines vertically and two lines horizontally making three columns, three rows, and nine sections in the images. Important compositional elements and leading lines are placed on or near the imaginary lines and where the lines intersect.When taking a photograph with the rule of thirds in mind, it’s always best to compose the photograph in the camera. This is so that you can avoid cropping later to retain as much of the image as possible and avoid reducing the quality of your photographs. However, I encourage going back to some of your older photography and seeing if you can improve them by cropping in a way to make them use the rule of thirds technique.
How to compose using
|
rule_of_thirds_workshop_small.pdf | |
File Size: | 827 kb |
File Type: |
Download the pdf file to see the presentation.
The Golden Spiral
Golden Spiral
The golden spiral is another method that people often use to compose a shot. A curve starts from the corners and goes across the upper portion of the frame, spiralling towards the middle and the bottom. The concept is that movement and subjects should all fall on the curve and your most interesting portion of the frame should align closely with the middle of the spiral in the lower quadrant of the frame.
The golden spiral is another method that people often use to compose a shot. A curve starts from the corners and goes across the upper portion of the frame, spiralling towards the middle and the bottom. The concept is that movement and subjects should all fall on the curve and your most interesting portion of the frame should align closely with the middle of the spiral in the lower quadrant of the frame.
Golden Triangles
Golden Triangles are yet another composition technique that photographers use to break the scene up and put emphasis on certain areas of the frame. This involves drawing a diagonal line from one corner to the other of the image, and then from that line, two more lines come from the remaining corners to connect them together. Where the shorter lines touch the larger middle line are the areas where the most interesting parts of your composition should be lined up.
Golden Triangles are yet another composition technique that photographers use to break the scene up and put emphasis on certain areas of the frame. This involves drawing a diagonal line from one corner to the other of the image, and then from that line, two more lines come from the remaining corners to connect them together. Where the shorter lines touch the larger middle line are the areas where the most interesting parts of your composition should be lined up.