Composition Tips for New Photographers
/Welcome! If you are new to taking ownership of your photographic pursuits, you are probably inundated with sites and articles all designed, ostensibly, to help you be a better photographer.
Certainly look at whatever you like, so long as you remember that the photograph is not made in the camera or lens or computer, the photograph is made in your brain. How viewers interpret what they see has a direct impact on how memorable or visually interesting an image is. Some sites and folks refer to these tips as guides or rules or laws. Let’s forget semantics and explore why these things work well most of the time.
Memorability and Interest
A photograph that you love has two primary elements. It looks to you in a way that creates enough interest in your mind to pause and look at the image more closely. This is just like a painting or a sculpture, because making a photograph is a creative act, similar to other art forms. An interesting photograph tells a story, or creates a place in the viewer’s mind to allow that person to write his or her own story. Humans are storytellers, going back to when we were hunter gatherers. We like stories and a photograph that tells or creates a story is compelling. Compelling stories are memorable. If you take only these two elements away today, you are ahead.
Composition
How the elements of a single photograph are laid out on the screen or the print is called composition. Composition is also a creative pursuit. It does not just happen and takes a bit of work to develop as a skill. Humans evolved to see the threat, what we refer to as destructive vision. If a lion is stalking you on the savanah, you focus on the lion and tend to ignore the surroundings. Our eyeballs have evolved as well in such a manner that the best focus and distance gauging (the benefit of two eyes or binocular vision) happen when the threat is in the centre of the image field. This is not the best part of the eye to detect movement, but if you need to be able to learn as much as you can about a threat, it goes in the centre of the visual field.
Dead Center is Not Optimal for a Photographic Subject
The great photographer and my friend Rick Sammon has published multiple books and is oft quoted at saying dead centre is deadly. He is right in two ways. As prey we keep the threat dead centre. However as artists, placing the subject of our photograph dead centre does not create a memorable image because the brain has evolved to focus on something in the centre and ignore everything else. To make a photograph last in the viewer’s mind, that viewer needs to look at the entire image. If we put the subject in the centre, the viewer’s eye goes there and stops. This is not a good way to engage a viewer. You can certainly choose to place a subject dead centre if you wish, but doing so should only be done to emphasize and strengthen the story that you are telling.
A Photograph Has a Single Subject
Many beginning and some well practiced photographers believe that an image can have multiple subjects. This is incorrect. Humans like simplicity and tend to move away from complexity. Movies and TV shows must have a strong plot to keep the viewer engaged. When the plot is weak, viewers move on. If there are too many subjects, it’s like having too many plots and this makes the viewing more difficult. Subplots are common in TV and Film, because viewers are very passive with very short attention spans. The idea of multiple subjects or plots in a single image fails most of the time. There is a single primary subject and everything else in the image must serve to support, enhance and bring attention to the primary subject.
Odd Numbers and the Power of Three
The most stable structure is the triangle. Three legs are more stable than four. Not to be pedantic but this is why we have tripods and not quad pods. Even numbers imply a balance or symmetry. While this can be interesting if portrayed well, it lacks dynamism. Humans respond better to images with an odd number of subjects and supporting elements. Think in groups of threes and position yourself to make triangles between the subject and supporting elements in an image as well as make triangles amongst the supporting elements. Doing so leverages a pre-existing psychological bridge in the mind and is both interesting, comfortable and safe to the mind of the viewer
Place Points of Interest on Intersections on Thirds in the Frame
Often called the rule of thirds, this is less a rule than recognition of how the eye and brain work together in a non-threat scenario. Our eyes follow a path, most often coached by how we read. For most westerners this is left to right, up to down. In some languages and cultures the path differs in direction, yet interestingly, the intersection points remain constant, only the order in which they are viewed changes.
In the simple graphic, we see a general frame with a length to height ratio of 3:2, the same as 35mm film, a full frame sensor or a crop sensor. There are vertical lines dropped from the top at ⅓ and ⅔ in reading left to right and at ⅓ and ⅔ down reading up to down. Each of these lines has two intersection points highlighted by dots in the graphic. These intersection points are the points of highest relevance to the human brain in a non-threat situation.
Standard Rule of Thirds Grid
When composing your image, try placing the most important part of your subject on one of the intersection points. Doing so may require you to zoom with your lens or with your feet to get things oriented.
The concept of thirds is also very useful in landscape photography. It is a common thing to see the horizon on the horizontal centre line, yet this is a very uncomfortable place for it to be for a viewer, because you are failing to tell the viewer where to look.
If the sky is the most important part of your landscape image, place the horizon on the lower third. If the foreground is the most important part of your landscape, place the horizon on the upper third.
Another use is positioning a person. If your human subject is on the left side of the frame, have that person turn slightly to their left and look a bit that way. If the human subject is on the right side of the frame, have the person turn slightly to their right and look that way.
Consider also photographs of moving subjects. Leave more space in front of the subject than behind so the subject has “somewhere to go” in the frame.
In general you are using these guides to create asymmetry and dynamism in the image. You don’t have to use them, but your risk of a staid and boring image is much higher.
I you find this concept useful, check your camera owner’s manual. Many modern cameras can overlay a thirds grid in the viewfinder to assist in composition that does not appear in the final image.
Summary
Photography is lifetime learning. I won’t try to drown you with endless guides and such. Instead, let’s go slowly and smoothly together. Take the time to practice these tips. Reading them and memorizing them is not enough in a practical world. You have to do them. Unlike back when I started, there is no incurred cost of film and you don’t have to travel far to practice and use these ideas. Family, friends, pets, the local park, a drive around town, a jaunt to the country, all provide opportunity for you to make your own images. Also consider looking at other photographer’s work. If you will pardon an older fellow, I am going to suggest not social media. Instead reach out to your town or regional library either live or through their online services and go through the images in the National Geographic magazine. The National Geographic has worked with most of the best photographers in the world, and have always taken the approach that a single image must tell a story. They do in one image, what some sites cannot do in a hundred. Be inspired by what you see. Try to copy images that you like where you are. The subjects and landscapes may be different, but you will see these concepts at play. And keep coming back here as we take this journey together.
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I'm Ross Chevalier, thanks for reading, watching and listening and until next time, peace.
