Hey guys welcome to 5 minute Fridays with me Jessica McGovern multi award winning
international portrait photographer. Don't want to dilly dally around this one we're
going to talk about composition and I've got 5 minutes so lets jump straight in.
What is composition, composition is how you structure an image either in camera or in editing
afterwards it's all about where things are placed within the scene and it makes an image
either pleasing, impactful or boring and flat. So composition is really important as most people
know for me #composition is life. I have already done a video on composition I'll link that above
but it's so ancient I need to do a refresh. I've got some images on the screen now that I want
to share with you and we'll walk through some composition basics, ok so as you can see Percy
is stood really nicely here but if you also were to overlay the image with some gridlines then you
would also notice that actually he conforms to one of if not the most important compositional
rule now those aren't equal lines but this is what's called the rule of thirds grid the rule
of thirds is a really really important concept and the rule of thirds grid essentially works in a way
that looks like this you can probably barely see the black lines running through there but as you
can see these equal grids we've got one two three one two and three going over the image now the
subject is positioned on or around one of these four cross points in the image. Now in this case
Percy's positioned so that his outside eyes fall around the vertical cross point which is something
that is usually something that is very pleasing for portraits so make a note of that one. We also
have in this instance in this image another little compositional tool happening and that is these log
edges that you can see in the frame these are called leading lines leading lines
lead the viewer into the subject and now we can see both of them both of them are nicely pointing
towards the main man himself over there that's leading lines and the rule of thirds we'll look at
a few more examples of that but hopefully this is easy to understand moving on to Riocca here Riocca
is a really good example again of leading lines coming into this scene only she's got quite a few
so these leading lines all point again towards the subject nice and straight forward now Riocca
is also conveniently placed on or around the third line again rule thirds because Riocca is leaning
slightly towards the left hand side the space is left to the left but in the background of this
image we also have framing elements in the place of this tree and this darker section at the side
of the frame you can see that Riocca sits almost perfectly in the centre of that natural frame so
in this image we've got a few different principles in play with both got directional rule of thirds
happening we've got leading lines and we've got natural framing elements to divert the eye
to exactly to where we want it to be now I know the one that I just want to jump on forwards to
here is Pipi we're actually utilising a diagonal path to provide interest to the eye diagonals and
triangles are always going to be a win when it comes to composition but we also have again a
rule of thirds grid happening with her head placed on or around the third cross point and the space
is left to the direction that she's looking into my artwork my drawing skills are brilliant I know.
You also have leading lines leading us in from the log less so in this instance than before
as well have a framing element of the tree in the background all of these things come
together and if you're struggling with it just pick one and go with that so pick rule of thirds
always first and foremost this image of a cocker spaniel puppy is a really really good example
of having a rule of thirds situation with space left in the direction the subject is looking into
if the subject is pointing in a certain direction the space should be at that side if the subject is
looking in a certain direction the space should be at that side wherever the eyes are going the
space should go if the eyes are straight forward go with the line of the body but what if the line
of the body is dead centre what if everything in the scene is symmetrical what if all of the lines
in the framing in the image is coming together so there's a central point well in that case you need
to go for what I call a centre split this is the perfect example of the centre split we've got the
subject pretty much straight in the centre of the image and everything else falls around that but
don't think that there's nothing else happening here because we also have rule of thirds the eyes
are on or around the upper third line there and everything works nicely. Notice on all of these
images the space around the subject we need to make sure that the space and the subject has got
room on the sides and in this case the sides all balanced balance around the edges is important too
so what do you do if you want to have a little bit more scale a little bit more space and then
we come to little Finn's image here Finn's image is a great example of utilising a curve in the
subject to lead the viewer up into a certain direction in this case the direction is up.
Finn is looking this way and therefore there is more space to this side he also sits on or around
the lower third point in this to provide the scale so what is composition and how do you use it well
first things first make sure that you place your subject on or around a cross point make sure
that the space is to the direction the subject is looking into and if not then looking then moving
into if everything is symmetrical go for a centre split and utilise curves and shapes in the natural
environment to frame the scene leading lines are a win so always use them if you can and that
is composition. If that was useful for you please do let us know hit the like button hit the
subscribe button drop some stuff in the comments because all of this is wonderful for the YouTube
gods hopefully this was fun and I'll meet you back next week for another 5 minute Friday.
I really enjoyed that actually I enjoyed that a lot so yeah see you soon.