Composition 101: WHAT is in your pictures?
This is the first in a series of articles intended to cover the basics of photography in layman’s terms, for people who simply want to take better pictures. This is not intended for experienced hobbyists, enthusiasts, artists, professionals, etc. This is for those who want to get a handle on some basics.
Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?
In the age of modern cameras, with auto-focus and light sensors and zoom at the touch of a button, we can largely skip the discussion about focal length and aperture and shutter speed and ISO. If you really want to know about that stuff, there are a thousand books to pick from. Likewise, I’m assuming you already know the basics of operating your camera. You know how to turn it on, how to point it at your subject, and how to take the picture. Let’s move along to the good stuff: how to take better pictures.
Composition is King
There are many aspects to good photography, but the most important of all is composition.
At its most basic, composition can be boiled down to two questions:
- What is in your picture?
- Where is it?
This ranges from the very simple stuff (like paying attention to what’s in the background) to the somewhat-obscure (like the rule of thirds). Let’s start simple and work our way up, shall we?
What is in your picture?
When you’re holding your camera up, ready to take a picture, take a moment to pause and really look at the scene.
- Is there anything in the background that you don’t want to include?If you’re taking someone’s picture, look at what they’re standing in front of.The internet is full of examples where the photographer didn’t pay attention to this, and you end up with a lovely picture of a jet of water coming out of someone’s ear.Look for anything that would distract from your subject, and try to minimize or eliminate those distractions. Unless they’re part of the scene, of course! There’s some you’ll want to keep, but by pausing to look, you can make that decision.In this example, the table on the left, and some concrete pavers on the right distract from the intended subject of the picture: the dog!
Doggie!
- Is there anything odd around the edges of the view? (someone’s elbow, a dog’s tail, the corner of a building, a piece of debris, a bright reflection)Odd things around the edges of an image draw the eye away from the main subject. At the least, they can be distracting, and at the most, they can make an otherwise very nice photo look hurried and amateur. Sometimes these can be cropped out later, but it’s better to eliminate them now, if you can. Take a step to the side, reframe the photo, and you may be able to eliminate them.In this example, a potentially very cool-looking storm cloud loses attention to a dinghy davit. By moving to another location, or zooming in, this could have been avoided.
Storm over Galveston Bay
- Are there important things missing?The classic example here is people missing body parts, but it can really be anything that you want in the picture that’s getting cut off, or anything that looks odd because it’s getting cut off. For example, if you’re taking a picture of a building with a sign across the front of it, it may look odd to have the sign cut off. Likewise, pay attention to whether you’re cutting off someone’s limbs. If they’re gesturing, make sure their hands are in the picture. Don’t cut off the tops of heads, etc.In the picture of the dog, above, for example, I’ve managed to cut off her tail. While not the focus of the picture, it would have been better to reframe a little to get that in.
Coming up next time: Mixing Foreground and Background Objects
Stay tuned!
