Creating an Eye Catching Composition for your Photos

Time flies when you’re having fun learning photography, right? Okay, cheesy opening lines aside, the third week of my #CharmedDSLR photo challenge and mini course has come to an end. This past week we covered one of my favorite photography topics, composition. Composition is the bread and butter of great photography and is one of the more creative aspects of the skill. Although I am a vehement supporter of getting creative with image composition, I believe it’s incredibly important to first understand the established techniques and visual rules that have dominated image composition for centuries. Although each photographer may have their own unique styles and subtleties, we are all subject to the same overarching principles of good visual design and image composition.  So let’s see how my #CharmedDSLR students did exploring image composition.

Day 15: Classical Composition

One of the earliest and simplest forms of composition is classical composition, when you take a single subject and center it in your image. Its the clearest way to capture a subject because there is no confusion or ambiguity about what you are supposed to be looking at as the viewer. With this prompt, I was impressed with how many of my students were able to not only take a single subject as the focus but keep the subject in an environment that was interesting and yet didn’t compete for the attention of the subject.

Day 16: Triangle Composition

When it comes to great composition across all mediums, using an odd number of subjects somehow tends to create the best results. With triangular composition you arrange three dominant objects in a scene so that they form a triangle. Of course, there are a number of ways to achieve this composition using layering and perspective and it was interesting to see how my students would manifest the concept in their own images. There is certainly a good amount of variety within these images that goes to show that even within one single concept of composition, an endless number of unique formations are possible!

Day 17: Rule of Thirds

Rule of thirds is probably one of the most popular concepts of composition. Although you may not be familiar with the term itself, most people are familiar with the Rule of Thirds grid that you can use to assist in taking images on most smartphones and digital cameras. With this composition method, placement of objects in the frame can be arranged in a number of ways, either by dividing the frame into thirds or by placing key objects at intersecting points on the rule of thirds grid. As you look at each of these images, image that grid overlaid on the image to get an even clearer understanding of the thought that goes into well balanced images like these!

Day 18: Negative Space

Within each great image there is always a balance between positive and negative space, meaning the space that is filled with a subject and the space that is left open. With this prompt, students were expected to explore negative space in creative ways and again their variation did not disappoint! There is really no right or wrong way to approach negative space, you can do it a number of ways, by leaving a large portion of the image in negative space or by using the negative space to create a shape in and of itself. The point of this prompt was simply to make my students aware of that negative space and not to think only of the subject of the image.

Day 19: Leading Lines

Leading lines are such a direct way to get the attention of a viewer in an image and guide their eye. I absolutely love the first image in this collection with the painted arrow pointing to the dog because it really illustrates exactly what the concept of leading lines is all about; directing the viewer to look at the subject! Definitely had some creative entries for this prompt that I really enjoyed!

Day 20: Symmetry

Symmetry is such an interesting compositional concept because in my opinion its like the rebel of all composition. Generally speaking, a good composition should have variation but with symmetry, we are making an exception to this rule and saying that its okay to create that mirror image effect with our subjects. I do personally love symmetry when its found in nature or through architecture, which some of my students were aptly able to capture, but symmetrical compositions can really be found and created in so many places. The image of the doorknobs above was particularly striking to me especially with the way it divides the light between a darker and lighter side to the image. As to was I intrigued by the picture of the girl sitting because its not entirely symmetrical, but there is a sense of balance in that image as well that really pushes the envelope in terms of composition. Again, I’m just proving my point here that symmetry is the rebel of composition but everyone does like a rebel!

Day 21: Golden Ratio

The final compositional prompt for week three was the golden ratio, which like its cousin, the rule of thirds, relies on a mathematically proportioned formula to predict and guide strong compositions. Rooted in the Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio is a naturally occurring mathematical calculation that is known for creating natural spirals. I was glad to see how many students used the concept of the spiral in their images, but one specific image I want to point out is the backyard scene with the foliage. If you look closely at that image, you can really see the formation of the natural spiral in two places. First, the large spiral created by the negative space created by the greenery to the upper left of the image, and then the smaller spiral created by the greenery towards the bottom right. There is a sense of cosmic balance in this image that is not something manipulated by the photographer, instead that natural composition was captured by the photographer who clearly illustrates a great eye for framing the scene! And thats what great image composition really boils down to. You can either style a scene just so or you can see a scene already created and capture it in just the right way so that the natural composition is exposed!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this recap of week three of #CharmedDSLR! Coming up next week I actually have something special planned, a LIVE Photography Webinar event where I will be recapping what we covered in this course and providing some new content and concepts that will help you take better pictures for your blog, business and social media accounts! If you feel like you have been struggling with photography and want to know my exact process for composing, taking and editing awesome images, you won’t want to miss this webinar so click here and request your invitation to the event!

xoxo,