Composition 101: Decisions, decisions

Before you make a great photograph, you have to find a subject. Probably the easiest thing for a photographer to do is to decide what to shoot.

The world is full of an infinite number of potentially great images. Finding something to put into an image is easy.Then comes the tough part -- you have to decide what to eliminate. We live in a chaotic world. A well-designed photograph creates order out of this chaos. According to Edward Weston, order is the basis ofgood composition, “the strongest way of seeing.”

Some photographers refer to is as the KISS rule: Keep is simple.

Horizontal or vertical?

I don’t think my dad hasn’t ever taken a photograph while holding the camera on its side. For many amateurs, whether they are shooting a flag pole of a giraffe, the camera automatically goes horizontal. But photographers have to study the scene and decide which will make the strongest image -- horizontal or vertical.

Framing

Once you have picked a subject, you have to “frame” the photograph. You often see movie directors using their hands to crop an area. It is a way of studying what you are looking at as if it were framed in your camera.You have to learn to look at the world as if its many visually interesting elements were in frames. Some of the best photographers, like Henri Cartier Bresson and Richard Avedon, printed their images with the “rebate” showing. It’s the black line around the image -- which part of the unexposed negative. If you are shooting with 35mm film, like Cartier Bresson, the rebate shows you made use of every millimeter of the frame. And he did. Look at his images -- there isn’t anything extraneous.

It is a 24x36mm area of negative, perfectly composed.

It’s called a clean image. Nothing distracts from the image.

Everything is important. Less usually is more.

Angle of view (perspective)

A second thing that marks the images of many untrained picture takers -- the angle they take all their photographs depends on their height. A 5’6” photographer usually takes most of their shots from this height.

You have to study your subject from 360 degrees. Look for the most interesting angle. Lay on the ground and look up. Stand on a ladder and look down. (I never go to a shoot without a ladder -- I use it WAY more than my tripod.) Shoot kids from their level. Or get lower and shoot up. Do a portrait looking down on someone. Psychology: what feeling do you get when looking down on someone? When looking up.

Wide or tight?

Take a careful look at your subject. Try getting as close to it as your camera can focus...then pull back so it is a smaller element. What is more effective? Take risks. Try making portraits from extremely close up. Just shoot hands. Or feet. What tells the story? Foreground, middle ground and background. Make sure each element is important. Or leave it out.

Foreground:

Should you use a wide lens, to create the illusion of depth? Or use a longer lens to put something out of focus in the foreground, to add color or drama? Or use a technique called framing, by choosing an element to draw attention to your background by framing it?

Background:

Is is essential? Or is it just distracting? Are their aerials or light posts projecting from someone’s head?

Rules? We don’t need no stinking rules...

We read images the same way we read words, starting at the top left and following back and forth until exiting the picture at the bottom right. We tend to focus on the centre of an image, when looking at it, and not as much on the outside edges.

Out of habit, and training, we think the middle is the most important. It can make for safe, static, boring images.

The Rule of Thirds

Take your frame, draw two imaginary lines across it horizontally and repeat vertically. The point of interest should be where one of the lines crosses.

It’s a way of composing your image other than the standard: and visually, it doesn’t create tension in the viewer.

Dynamic framing

One interesting way of cropping is to use the frame dynamically: Place your subject at extremes to create action: on the right, so they are entering the frame...on the left they are leaving the frame.

Place the subject in a corner adds tension.

Place a subject at the left and it feels like it will naturally enter the frame, but place it at the right, and it creates visual tension.

Color: Great color alone can make a picture. (Think of a yellow fire hydrant against a deep blue wall).

Get in close and use bold or subtle colors alone to make an interesting image.

Complimentary colors: opposites on the color wheel work well together (blue and red, yellow or orange, green and purple or red).

Monochromatic scenes are peaceful, quiet and still.

Bright contrasting colors give a sense of action and energy.

Warm colors: Are active, seem to be brighter, and can even feel like they are projecting out. A scene bathed in firelight gives a psychological warmth to a scene.

Cool colors: Shoot a portrait on tungsten film, bathed in cool blue light, and it brings a chill to the scene. Cool colors are also passive, and seem to draw back into the scene.

Some things that make interesting photos:

Abstractions

Patterns

Texture (and contrasting texture: flowers on rusted metal etc.)

Lines: Look for interesting lines. Converging lines showing linear perspective. e.g. railway tracks and roads, which the viewers eyes will follow. Horizontal lines give a feeling of slow movement.

Diagonal lines convey rapid movement. Zig zags have a more violent feel, while curves feel graceful and flowing. Verticals give a sense of stability and strength. Your eyes naturally follow lines in photographs. Careful design can give a viewer a path to wander around, enhancing the interest in the image.

Repetition.

Juxtaposition.

Silhouette -- expose for the sky and get a dramatic image

Shadows.

Look, look, look some more

In order to learn to make good photographs, you also have to look carefully and critically at your prints when they come back from the lab.

Be tough on your self. Get some cropping arms, move around the photograph and see if there was a way to get tighter and make a more interesting picture.

Assignment: Pick an interesting subject and photograph it from several angles. Get high. Get low. Move in as close as your camera will allow. Think about the frame: make sure there is nothing extraneous.

And don’t forget the basics: depth of field (do I want a lot of focus, or a little), shutter speed and proper exposure.