Chapter 1

Photographic Composition: The Overview

647615-co0101.tif

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 — how he understands your message — depends mainly on your ability to compose clear and interesting images. Every time you take a photograph, you’re 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 photographer’s 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 images’ 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 don’t need to understand music theory to differentiate between a good song and a bad song. However, you’re more likely to compose a good song if you understand the theory behind the music.

remember.eps 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 — whether it’s a photograph, a painting, a room, or any other object — 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 that’s in your frame — the rectangular space that’s represented by your camera’s viewfinder or your photograph. In a photograph, the way you reveal the relationships between the different elements in your scene makes up your composition.

remember.eps 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 camera’s format) that contains the scene you’re shooting. You can’t always manipulate a scene, but you can control how the scene is represented in your frame if you’re 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 scene’s 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 — 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.

647615-fg0101.tif

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 — that it’s in a cold climate, it’s 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 mountain’s 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 to the immediate right of it.

The body of water that the river feeds into tells you that this mountain begins at sea level. If you started at the base and hiked to the summit, you would experience many shifts in weather. I only had to show a small amount of the body of water to relay its part of the message. Minimizing its presence in the frame gives more drama to the mountain.

Leading the eye to important elements

After years of reading, your mind is trained to automatically respond to the words on this page. You start at the top left corner of a page and scan the printed letters from left to right, working your way down. The large, bold fonts in the headings capture your attention and give you an idea of what information is on the page. You probably read those headings first and then decide whether you want to read the normal print under them. Advertisements often include fine print used to reveal information that’s necessary for legal reasons without encouraging you to read it.

A photograph works much like printed text, but it can be much more complex. Your job as a photographer is to tell a story, so the way a viewer reads into an image will have a major effect on the message. Having an idea of how people look at images helps create successful compositions.

You can use any of a long list of techniques to direct a viewer’s eyes through a photograph. Here’s a list of ways to draw attention to important elements:

Pay attention to your contrast. The area with the highest contrast (the most drastic transition from light to dark) usually is the first place viewers look in an image. You also can use color to create contrast. Chapter 6 gives you more information on contrast.

Keep your focus on the subject. Your focal point is the area in the scene that you focus on with your lens. Usually this point is the subject itself. When you look at something, your eyes focus on it. And the point in an image that’s in focus is most similar to how you see things in real life. So, you’ll probably pay most attention to that area when viewing an image. For more information on how to focus on a subject, read Chapters 3 and 7.

Provide leading lines. Leading lines get the attention of a viewer’s subconscious and direct his eyes from one element in the frame to another. Photographers use leading lines as a way to keep your eyes in the frame and to tell a story in a certain order. Picture, for example, railroad tracks that lead your eyes to a vanishing point on the horizon. For more on lines, head to Chapter 4.

Direct viewers through the frame with tonal gradations. Tonal gradations are areas that go from lightness to darkness or vice versa. These gradations help direct a viewer through a frame because if your eye starts at the point with the highest contrast, perhaps it will next go to the point with the second highest contrast.

Draw attention in a photograph using color. An outstanding color can help viewers determine the subject of a photo. If, for example, a photograph includes a crowd of people wearing white hats and one person wearing a red hat, viewers’ eyes naturally go to the person with the red hat, which is likely your subject. Chapter 6 covers various methods of using color to draw a viewer’s eye or create a specific mood.

Include patterns and repeating elements. These elements tend to catch a viewer’s eye — perhaps because humans have the natural ability to recognize similarities in things. A mirrored image (like the reflection of mountains in the water) adds interest to a composition. Natural and manmade patterns add interest as well. For more about repetition and patterns in composition, see Chapter 12.

Create a visual frame within your frame using the compositional framing technique. Your frame refers to the edges of your viewfinder or photograph, but a compositional frame is something you create that occupies the area inside the edges of your frame. Its purpose is to keep viewers’ eyes from wandering away from the photograph. If a leading line goes to the edge of the frame, a viewer’s eyes follow it, leading him directly out of the image. A compositional frame creates lines that go along the edges to direct eyes back toward the elements of the scene. For examples and more information on framing, flip to Chapter 11.

remember.eps These techniques don’t exist in a vacuum; you often mix and match them according to the effect you want to create. If, for example, you arrange your composition so the subject is in focus and is positioned in the area with the highest contrast, you pretty much guarantee that a viewer’s eyes will go directly to the subject. If your subject is in focus but another element in the scene creates higher contrast, the two elements compete for attention.

Achieving balance

When photographers create compositional balance, they create a space that’s easy for viewers to look at — one in which the various elements are evenly distributed throughout the frame. If too many elements are bunched together in one area of the frame, the other areas become empty and uninteresting. Viewers generally spend more time looking at images that contain points of interest throughout the frame.

Figure 1-2 shows compositional balance in one of its simpler forms. You can see how the eagle provides a counterweight to the mountains. If the eagle weren’t flying through the sky, your eyes would only be drawn to the mountains — and, as a result, you probably wouldn’t spend too much time viewing the image. Chapter 12 provides more detailed descriptions of balance and techniques on how to achieve it.

647615-fg0102.tif

135mm, 1/250 sec., f/8, 125

Figure 1-2: Balance is achieved by positioning elements evenly throughout the frame.

Gaining Control of Your Compositions

You can’t create great compositions without making some important decisions — from how to set up your camera and choose which angle you shoot from to what elements make it into your shot. Many — if not most — of these decisions become second nature to you as you gain experience with your camera. However, as you dip your toes into the compositional waters, you have a lot to consider, so this section alerts you to the kinds of decisions you need to make when you compose a photograph.

Working your basic camera settings

The best photographers can pay attention to their scenes and concentrate on creating the finest compositions possible without having to worry about their cameras producing bad technical results. In other words, they’re familiar and comfortable with the settings and technicalities of their cameras. To improve your own compositions, you too need to know what your equipment is capable of and how to use it.

Most digital cameras offer various automatic and manual settings. Each of these can be used to produce great images; often it’s up to the discretion of the photographer as to which one works the best. The automatic setting is fine in some situations, but you also need to be comfortable manually controlling your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. (If you’re in the dark on these terms, they’re explained in Chapter 3, which also gives you information on your camera’s automatic settings.)

tip.eps Regardless of whether you use automatic or manual controls, you should always check the results of your image quality by referring to your camera’s histogram. The histogram warns you if your highlights are blown out or if your shadows are underexposed. See Chapter 3 for more on using histograms.

remember.eps Confidence is key, especially when you photograph people. Get as familiar with your equipment as possible so you can achieve appropriate exposures the first time. This way you can spend more time communicating with your subjects or taking in the beautiful scene you’re photographing. Having your face constantly buried in the camera’s LCD display screen causes you to miss photographic opportunities.

Choosing the lens that fits your message

Your lens determines what information is available to the camera’s digital sensor. With digital SLR cameras, lenses are interchangeable so you can choose the appropriate one for the scene you’re photographing. Most digital point-and-shoot cameras are equipped with a zoom lens that enables you to zoom in for tight shots and zoom out for a wider angle of view.

You can choose from the following three main types of fixed lenses:

Wide-angle: These lenses reveal a more peripheral view and allow you to capture a large area of your scene. Using this type of lens is ideal when you want to fit as much information as possible into your frame. Elements that are closest to your camera will appear much larger than those that are farther away when using this lens type.

Normal: These lenses reveal an angle of view that’s similar to what you see with your eyes. They don’t capture as much peripheral information as a wide-angle, but they do produce an image that’s most true to the way something looks in real life.

Telephoto: These lenses have a narrow angle of view that captures a smaller portion of your scene. This type of lens causes elements to appear larger in your frame than the other two lens types. Telephoto lenses are ideal when you’re far from your subject but want to get a tight shot of it.

Chapter 3 tells you more about lenses.

Using perspective to enhance your message

Your perspective is determined by your camera position in relation to the elements of your scene. It’s how you see your subject and everything else in your frame. In a three-dimensional world, the way you see things changes when you move up, down, and side to side. Changing your perspective enables you to position everything in your frame in the way you see most visually pleasing or appropriate for your message.

remember.eps The elements in a scene and the relationship of those elements to each other within the frame determine the message that a photograph conveys.

If you’re on a road trip with your family and come across a national landmark, you’ll probably take a photograph to prove you were there. The message of that photograph is “Hey, look at us; we were there.” In this situation, your perspective is critical for revealing and manipulating the relationships of a scene’s elements in your frame.

Say you get everybody out of the station wagon to have a look at the Grand Canyon. While your family is looking over the edge, you ask them to turn around for a picture. You have three elements to consider, the subject (your family), the background (the Grand Canyon), and the foreground (the parking lot). Your perspective is going to determine how much of each of these is going to be included in the composition and what relationships they have with each other. I describe the details of perspective in Chapter 8; however, the following list introduces you to some of your options in the Grand Canyon situation:

Step close to your family. This perspective shows more detail of who they are and less detail of the environment around them.

Back away from the family. By backing up, you make your family smaller in the frame and show more of their surroundings.

Use a wide-angle lens. With this lens, you can include as much of the scene as possible — your family, the background, the station wagon, and even some other tourists in the area.

Use a long lens. When you use this type of lens, you can crop in specifically on the family and their immediate surroundings.

Choose a high angle. If you choose to shoot from a high angle — maybe by standing on top of the station wagon — you show the family and a view that looks down into the canyon.

Figure 1-3 shows a scene that I photographed with two separate perspectives. Each image in the example reveals different aspects of the environment. The perspective on the left approaches the subject from far away and has an emphasis on the surrounding environment, thus distributing compositional importance to all the elements in the scene. The perspective on the right approaches the subject from a nearer vantage point and distributes more importance to the subject. This perspective is more descriptive with regard to the subject and is great for isolating the star of your photograph.

647615-fg0103.eps

24mm, 1/200 sec., f/4, 100 70mm, 1/250 sec., f/6.3, 100

Figure 1-3: Because of the differing perspectives, the messages in these images also are different.

Pulling together the elements of composition

Your composition for a particular scene is basically a recipe. You consider certain factors automatically — what you focus on, how wide your angle of view is, and which perspective best represents the scene, to name a few. But other variables are unique to each situation, such as how many subjects to include, what mood the scene’s color scheme and lighting create, whether your subject is still or in motion, and so on.

In order to best determine these variables, you simply have to practice and build your skills. Most photographers go through phases as they build their compositional skill level. Doing so enables you to really master one area before moving on to the next. You can pay special attention to any specific compositional element, but here’s the order I suggest:

1. Keep an eye on your focal point.

By using the techniques in this book and your camera’s owner’s manual, ensure that your subject is always your focal point. Don’t settle for results in which your subject is blurry (unless you’re using your artistic license to do so, which is discussed in Chapter 12).

2. Concentrate on creating compositions that have depth.

To create depth, include foreground elements, a subject, and a background. Your subject is in focus (you mastered that in the first step), and you have foreground and background elements to create a supporting scene that enables viewers to work their way through the image.

Figure 1-4 shows an image with foreground, middle ground, and background elements. Your eyes are drawn into a photograph that displays this technique.

647615-fg0104.tif

24mm, 15 sec., f/5.6, 800

Figure 1-4: Depth helps to draw a viewer’s eyes into a photograph.

3. Pay attention to color in your scene.

Color plays a major role in determining how people feel about images. Being in tune with color is essential to relaying messages in a photograph. Pay attention to color in your scenes, and you’ll eventually notice it without trying. Look for scenes that predominantly reveal a single color, or seek out scenes with complimentary color elements. In other words, find a scene in which the colors contrast by existing on opposite sides of the color wheel. I talk about color in more detail in Chapter 6.

4. Start paying attention to the design elements you find in Chapter 4, including the following:

Lines: Elements that lead a viewer’s eyes from one area of the composition to another

Shapes and forms: Elements that take up a specific space in the frame in a particular way

Scale: The size and weight relationships of photographic elements

Patterns: The repeating elements and mirror images

remember.eps You have many elements to consider when you compose an image. You don’t have to include each one in every image, but do consider them. You’ll eventually develop the ability to analyze a scene and determine which elements are appropriate for telling the story of the scene through your eyes. The elements that you use to create an image should be only the ones that are necessary to support your message.