If you ask folk what the rules of composition are, you’ll generally get one of 3 responses:
1) There ARE no rules.
2) The Rule of Thirds, that’s an important one isn’t it?
3) I just shoot what I like, stay intuitive
And I guess all of these are very valid. There is a heck of a lot more to it than this though, as I found when I was asked to provide a camera club talk on the topic.
As ever, I over thought things, and started defining EVERY compositional consideration I could. I came up with about 25 compositional methods (not rules) that I was able to illustrate - and I’m sure there are many more. In fact there are about 25 more that I can think of straight off the cuff, for every method has an obverse that can be deliberately applied eg symmetry vs asymmetry, contrast vs low contrast, minimalism vs chaos, complementary colours vs jarring colour contrasts. The list goes on.
I also discovered that more often than not, I am indeed using these intuitively, either through an innate ability that was ingrained from my previous professional background in Design, or through the muscle memory that comes with hours and hours of photographic practice (see Malcom Gladwell’s well known book “Outliers” for the 10,000 hour rule). Often it’s only when I come to post processing that I more deliberately and consciously add to and ACCENTUATE what I have ALREADY applied unconsciously, to strengthen (rather than create) a compelling scene. In other words getting it right in camera is vital, but these compositional tools can fine tune and build on existing strengths.
So what are these composition methods? I’ll list them here - see how any you know or consider. Ask yourself how many you actually apply regularly. And do you do so before or after you've pressed the shutter. If you know them, I hope it helps you to be reminded of a few, or this may act as a cheat sheet. If there are any you’ve not heard of, please drop me a comment and I’ll explain them. Even better, if you can think of more, let me know!
Subtraction and simplification | Rule of thirds and elements to place within | Areas of Luminance contrast |
Lead in lines / lead out lines | Lead in S's and Z's | Lead in via Gestalt Theory (join the dots) |
Symmetry and breaking it | Object weights and balance | Colour palettes |
Anchors | Checking the edges | Distraction artefact removal |
Straight horizons (or not) and lines of convergence | Frameworks - Fibonacci, non standard thirds, centre weighting | Colour temperature and split toning. |
Format/Cropping | triangles and odd numbers | Colour Contrast |
Focus Contrast | Graphic shapes | Pareidolia (your mind orders things by likening them to other things) |
Impact of time (shutter speed) | Comedy and mood | High key vs low key to suit the subject |
Scale | Framing | Repetition and juxtaposition |
The point I made in my talk was that an engaging photograph is not just about the subject. It’s about the presentation of the subject, in a way that represents your imagination of it – realised through composition and lighting decisions, field craft and technical expertise, post processing techniques/competence, and ultimately in how you display the end result. Note it has very little to do with the tools used (ie how many megapixels your camera has). Composition is just one of the factors to learn in photography and it's complicated enough - I’ll tackle some of those other factors in future blogs.
Below is a very "simple" image I took back in 2017, in the eye of storm Ophelia - The minimalist palette, and uncluttered scene lets the geese stay the subject despite their small size- and although I wanted to show their tinyness moving through this vast scene, their resolute progress in the teeth of a storm to come, I was able to give them more visual weight by keeping them near the edge of the frame and reducing contrast everywhere else in the image. A simple shot, which when deconstructed, has a LOT of compositional considerations involved. At the time of taking this, I don't think I had a compositional thought in my head, but in processing, I used a lot of these techniques to make an image that became meaningful to me.
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