Lesser Prairie Chicken Running - Milnesand, NM
Most photographic websites claiming to teach the masses don’t spend much time with the real basics. They spend a lot more time on the technology side of things seemingly saying the basics are a given and aren’t really of interest to most photographers. I think that’s unfortunate. It also shows off in images presented on one photography forum or another. Mostly the images there are relatively unimpressive and don’t so a lot of knowledge of the basics. We’ll talk about the basics. Today’s case we’ll talking about composition.
Composition is one of those basic concepts you need for every image. Without good compositional skills you’re images will suffer for one reasons or another. To help prevent this, I have a few tips applicable to any photographer. Just know one thing, if you’re an experienced artist from other media like drawing or painting, note that the compositional challenges with photography can be quite different. I’ll get more into those details in the article.
What follows are a few basic tenants anyone should consider when shooting. As always with any set of rules, rules can be made to be broken. To me, this is saying it’s best to break the rules when you know what rules you’re breaking. Otherwise, you have no idea why things work for one image and not another--which is another problem about whether it’s better to know the rules vs just go out and shoot and see what happens. I’ll talk about this at the end.
Here we go... the rules
Lesser Prairie Chicken Portrait #5 - Milnesand, NM
Rule Of Thirds
Generally, every image has a subject. This is the primary reference for the image. It’s the item where you want your viewer’s eyes to be drawn to when they see you’re image. In general, you want this to be at what some people call the Power Position. What this is is the intersection of lines drawn on your picture dividing it into 1/3 sections. In this case the bird’s eye is at the upper left power position. As a general rule, the eye’s are generally the focus of your image--i.e. the subject--and therefore should be at one of the power positions.
Lesser Prairie Chicken In-Flight #2
Keep It Simple
Keep your images simple can be the opposite of painting or drawing. Generally in photography, it’s all about editing out the world to get to what’s important. Normally in the world, there’s plenty of “stuff” to confuse any image. To let the viewer see exactly what you want them to see, you need to edit out things so the subject is as obvious as possible, as in this image. This contrasts with painting or drawing. In those cases, it’s all about taking a blank canvas and adding all the elements that matter. It’s a completely different thought process. Photography is most similar to making a sculpture in the classic art world. In the sculpture world, you start with a large block. The task becomes editing out the parts that don’t make the final form. You take away the unnecessary parts, the parts that don’t add to the final subject. In photography it’s very much the same way.SunriseCatalog 08Calendar 09John MohonLesser PrairieChickenInFlight
Lesser-Prairie Chicken Portrait - Milnesand, NM
Balance Your Images
Balance can mean many things to many people. To me when it’s about photography, it’s about having equal “weight” on one side of the images as the other. How much something weighs can be the critical factor. Sometimes the weight of something can be what’s not there, what’s missing, as in this image. Sometimes how much something weighs has to be about having a complementary subject, an opposite. The trick becomes having an equal balance on one side of the image with the other.
Three Rivers Petroglyph At Night #2 - Three Rivers Petroglyph Park, NM
Use Leading Lines
Leading lines are those elements in your image that guide your viewer’s eye into the image. It’s usually something that points to something else. It doesn’t have to be something as obvious as an arrow. It can be something as simple as a shape that guides you to another shape and then to another. The basic idea with leading lines is to have a pointer that keeps your viewer’s eye guided into the frame vs something that might send the eye out of the frame.
South Window & Moonrise - Arches National Park, UT
Frame Your Subject
Using other natural features in your image, try to frame your subject. The framing can be completely subtle--see Figure 5a. It can be quite obvious like something in the opening of an arch as this image shows. There’s a moon in that arch. The object here as with using leading lines is to keep the viewer’s eyes on the image. Framing your subject will tend to keep you viewer’s eyes more engage with your image.
Big Horn Sheep Portrait - Jasper National Park, Alberta
Get Close
Here’s something that may be really hard to do in the natural world. The challenge when shooting wild subjects when getting close is to do it without affecting them or yourself in some way. Sometimes it works out. Other times... it’s best to have a backup plan for both you and your subject. In our case, the idea with getting close is to present a view of your subject your viewer may never have seen. It’s to create something unfamiliar with something usually very familiar. To me, getting close is about opening a universe that may not normally be available.SnowMalesCatalog 03Raw Fine Tuning 1.0 to 1.1Calendar 04Big Horn SheepCalendar
Lesser Prairie Chicken Fight #2
SunriseCatalog 08John MohonLesser PrairieChickenFightingCalendar 09
Lesser-Prairie Chicken Shaking - Milnesand, NM
You can also give the feeling of action by using a longer exposure and blurring the action as this image shows.
What’s Different About Photography?
What’s different about photography than just about any other visual art form? First, the technical challenges are quite extensive. I’ve written before about how there don’t appear to be any child prodigy photographers while every now and then we hear about one that plays for some national orchestra and they’re only six years old. Or, we hear about a rising star in the art world because some people think a 10 year old’s paintings show off a youthful exuberance that hasn’t been seen before... You don’t hear these kinds of things happening with photography. I attribute it to the technical challenges with photography you don’t have to mess with in the other arts.
The trouble for us is the technical piece becomes more of the challenge to overcome than the artistic tasks like composition. Don’t let that happen. Each of these tips can be used to a degree with the other visual arts. The difference with photography the environment has just as much to do with obtaining the image as designed as you do. The tip here is to put yourself in the best opportunity to capture something, then wait for nature to do its part. Be ready, in other words.
One Last Thing
As with all rules, they can be broken. Do not view these as never to be broken set of rules and standards. No flogging will occur if you break one of these rules. Still, not adhering to the rules for no apparent reason lends itself to a process with no thought behind it. I won’t get into it here but note as with any rule a good strong understanding of why a given rule exists is a sure ticket to breaking the rule with great effect when you want.
Cheers
Tom