The plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work.Actually, that's a very good description of what a photographer does with their photograph. How she or he places the elements in the constraints of the photograph. You've probably seen the commercials on TV or in movies where someone holds their thumb and index fingers on each hand in the shape of a rectangle and then looks through it. Sort of like they are looking through the viewfinder of a still or movie camera. Some folks hold up an empty 35mm slide to do the same thing (remember film). Anyway, this is an attempt to visualize composition or how I want my photograph to look. This sort of implies that there is a conscious effort when taking a photograph to arrange the elements in a fashion that is pleasing to you, the photographer.
Let me propose an additional definition of composition:
It's that moment when you are looking at something and you think to yourself, "hmmm, wouldn't that make an interesting picture?"My Mom, until recently, was expert at chopping off the tops of peoples heads when she took pictures at family gatherings. My brothers would have trees or plants growing out of their heads. People we didn't know would wave to her in her pictures. In the last year or so, with her point & shoot camera, she has been doing a lot of street photography. She has been developing a way of looking at scenes and paying attention the elements: the main subject and what is in the background. This is composition. She still cuts parts of people's heads off, but now that's considered to be trendy. (Who knew that she was such a trendsetter?) So, that's a part of composition, paying attention to what is going on in your frame.
How do I know where to place elements in my picture? Part of this is personal preference. You can ask yourself a number of questions: Like why am I taking this picture? Who is the picture for? That can help you determine how the picture should look. Fortunately, there are some guidelines that can help aid your decision. The first that we should talk about is the Rule of Thirds. Well, it's not really a rule, but a guideline. The rule of thirds is a way of positioning elements in your photograph that naturally appeals to our eyes. We'll talk a little more about that later.
Actually, let's take a step back and think of what your photograph looks like. Typically, most point & shoot (and DSLR) cameras output a rectangular image. (Some cameras allow you to change that, which is pretty cool.) You can orient the picture vertically, we often call this portrait, or horizontally, which is called landscape. The orientation is frequently determined by the subject: portrait or landscape are probably obvious. However, not all landscapes should be photographed with the camera set horizontally. For example, if you wanted to take a picture of a person, but wanted to show some of their surroundings it might be easier to hold the camera normally (horizontal). You are not limited to rectangular, when you process your picture, you can crop it any way you want that lends itself to the subject.
Back to the subject at hand, composition and the rule of thirds. So, now we have our image, divide it into thirds. That is, draw lines horizontally and vertically, at intervals of 1/3 spacing. Some cameras allow you to turn on a grid with just such a spacing on the LCD screen. You should now be asking, why thirds and what do I do with it?
It turns out that the human eye finds certain mathematical proportions very pleasing and thirds just happens to work. (Actually, this happens a lot in nature and as mentioned before, we'll talk about it in more depth later.) It turns out that artists throughout history have known about this and used this quide when painting. If you don't believe me, go to an art museum and look at the great masters. Or look at them on the web. Look at where they place their subjects, background and the horizon.
So, how do you use this information? At first, it's a bit of pain, because it slows your picture taking down. A lot. When you take a picture, think to yourself, do I want that tree growing out my daughter's head? Should that garbage can be in the photo? Is there another angle that would be better to shoot this picture from? See where this leads?
I want to warn you, that sometimes a snapshot is just that: a snapshot. To me a snapshot is just a capture of a moment I want to remember. I don't care if it's technically correct or whatever. As you practice the techniques that we are talking about, they become second nature. That is, you don't consciously think about it. It becomes second nature. In the coming entries we'll talk more about this.
A note of apology: I've obviously let this blog go dormant for quite some time and I'd like to revive it. Sorry about that.
