Improve your Photos using Basic Composition

This is the second part of a series of informational posts about how everyone can get the best out of their camera, regardless of what brand or style of camera you are using… You can read more about the types of cameras and which one might suit YOU here.

I have always been curious about photography. I remember playing around with my Mum’s camera as a child and setting up props to take pictures of. I always got frustrated because what I was seeing when the photos were developed was not what I had imagined in my own mind. Looking back at these situations I know now that it wasn’t the props or my vision that was lacking… it was knowledge about how to use the tools I had available – how to use the camera and the light in a way that would make my images stand out.

As I learned more about these two factors my photos improved… and so did my confidence in being able to replicate what I was seeing in my mind’s eye.

This series is intended to share some of that knowledge, so that you can create images that are more like the ones you are seeing in your imagination.

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So what exactly DOES turn a ‘good’ photo into a ‘great’ photo?

There are a range of things, but it basically comes down to two main elements - composition and lighting.

A great image will always catch your eye immediately. This might be achieved by the use of colours, shapes or contrast between light and dark. It might be because of a strong contrast between positive and negative space. Regardless of which components are used, a strong image will always contain at least one (but more often a combination) of these elements.

Finer details serve to keep your attention within the photograph. They could be cloud patterns, textures, hints of contrasting colour… anything that makes you want to look a bit deeper into the picture. These details are not noticed, though, without the initial impact of the picture – the elements of light and dark, colour and shape. It is the basic underlying fundamentals of composition and light that make or break an image.

Let’s talk about composition then… What does it mean, and how do you use it to make great photos?

One of the first things to consider when composing an image is that the subject really doesn’t matter too much! What??? How can that be if I am trying to take a photo of something that is particularly important?

If you want to take a photo that will really pop out at people – regardless of the subject – you need to begin thinking about your subject from a different perspective. Instead of seeing your subject as a particular object, you need to begin thinking of it in terms of shape and colour… it is a shape of colour within your image – how do you want to position that in your picture? Move the camera forward or back, left or right, to position the compositional elements the same way you might move pieces of coloured paper around a page to compose a collage.

Once you have your subject positioned where you want them, or more often, your camera positioned where you want it, then you need to consider the other compositional elements of your photograph.

The human eye wanders, it’s a fact, and you need to be aware of this. We are most easily drawn to the brightest, most colourful, or most contrasted area of a picture. But once we have seen this, we then tend to move our eyes around the whole image. You want to keep the viewer’s eye within the image and not wandering off the page. Make sure you keep important elements away from the corners, and especially not cut off by the edge of the photograph. It’s helpful to imagine that you are reading the image as you would a page of writing, from top to bottom, left to right, and keep the components of the image moving in the same direction. Allow space for movement within your image. Make sure people are looking ‘into’ and not out of the image, facing toward the middle and not the edge of the photo. 

Avoiding distractions within your image is an important aspect to consider. A telegraph pole or a tree in the top left hand corner that has no relevance to the image will only draw the viewer’s eye away from the main focus – the subject. Try to crop these distractions out by slightly changing your position, moving closer to your subject or turning slightly to avoid capturing the distraction within the frame of your image.

This image captures the affection between these two friends, however the background is very distracting and the impact of the photo is lost among the busyness of the background...

Moving in closer to the subjects and cropping out the distractions allows only the important parts of the image to be captured... 

THE RULE OF THIRDS…

One of the key points to remember when composing a photo is that our eyes are drawn naturally to the top, bottom, left or right third of a picture. Most great painters were aware of this and positioned their subjects in this way. Movies and TV shows use this when they film scenes. This is the natural and most comfortable position for our eyes to see the subject. This is where you want to position YOUR subject within your photograph.

Many point and shoot cameras have the option of placing a grid on the LCD screen which will help with this. 

Ideally you want the subject to be positioned where the vertical and horizontal lines meet. If you are photographing a person, then you want their eyes to be positioned on this cross-line. Post-processing programs, such as Photoshop also have the grid display when you select the cropping tool, enabling you to crop your photo to achieve the rule of thirds after the photo has been taken. However, it is much easier if you are aware of this when you are taking the photo in the first place.

When capturing a scene, it is useful to remember the Rule Of Thirds when positioning the foreground and horizon... Keeping the horizon either on the lower or upper third line will result in a much more pleasing image.

FART before you take a photograph!!!

Ken Rockwell uses the acronym FART to describe the process of composing a photo. He describes the four steps as:

FEEL - A good photo starts when you get the feeling to take a picture. You're walking around, and come across something that seems worthy of a photo. It's never a subject, like "a Ferrari” though. What catches our mind's eye and leads to a great photo is always something more abstract. What attracts us to Ferraris as photo subjects is their bold, solid, primary colors and their brilliantly pure styling.

ASK - Once you've got a hankering to stop and take a picture, stop and ask yourself exactly what it is that made you stop. Is it a bold color? Is it a crazy juxtaposition? Is it the wild light? What is it, exactly, that made you want to take a picture? Is it the brilliant Italian design, lines, motion and proportion of the Ferrari? If so, what exactly about the design caught your eye?

REFINE - Now that you have hopefully gotten some clue as to what it is that attracted your eye, the hard part is to refine the image to emphasize whatever it is. If we can emphasize whatever it was that stopped us, the photo will be far more likely to stop others and make them say WOW! In other words, if we liked something, was it because it had a weird texture? If so, be sure to show that texture as boldly as you can. If you like the color of something, fill the whole frame with it. If there is an interesting relationship between two things, be sure to do everything you can to make sure that that is what takes over the photo. Get rid of everything that isn't directly related to whatever it is that made you want to take the photo. Compose as strongly as you can. Eliminate everything that isn't directly related to the point of the photograph.

In the case of a Ferrari, if you don't FART before snapping, you're likely to make another boring photo of the whole car from eye level. If you FART first, you'll ask yourself what is it about the Ferrari that catches your eye, and when you can Answer that, maybe wind up with a close-up of those big round Hella tail lights. 

It's never about the obvious subject. It's always something more basic and subconscious that draws us to want to make a picture of something.

You always can refine more and more, and as you do, your photos become stronger. The better you can Answer and keep Refining, the more your photos will grab people.

TAKE - This is the easy part. Take the picture. Be sure the exposure and color (WB) are OK, and you're done.

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By learning how to compose your images before you take them, you will be producing far better photographs than the basic snapshots you have been used to. Pay attention to what grabs your attention about a scene or subject. Put to use The Rule of Thirds, underlying shapes, colours and forms to make your image stand out from the rest.

There are technical aspects to using a camera but most of the time your camera has all that covered if you are using the ‘auto’ settings. Your job is to pay attention to the position of your camera – millimeters can make a big difference – and really learn to SEE what is in the frame, and where in the frame it falls.

Get the composition right and you will be on your way to taking EXTRAORDINARY photos with any camera!