people tend to look at a photograph and their eyes tend to wander around the
image now a good photographer will be able to appreciate a well composed image
and know why it's good whereas a beginner or someone who isn't into
photography may look at an image and think wow that looks like an amazing
image but probably won't know why and probably won't care about the why but
this is usually down to good composition in setting up for composition you can
guide the viewers eye through the image drawing them to certain points and
moving them away from others ultimately telling a story so here are a few
guidelines to get you starting to think about your photos in a compositional way
now there are a few you'll have probably heard about and you'll probably grown up
one or two of them and some of you might want to start commenting about this but
there might be some that you haven't heard of or some that you might not have
considered but are equally important so it's good to consider some or all of
these at times and other times it's good to throw them all out of the window but
if you take your time to learn these and embed them into your subconscious mind
your photography will really start to develop and you'll start seeing a vast
improvement in your photos so let's just get the most well-known one out of the
way straight away and that's the rule of thirds beginners tend to put the subject
bang in the middle of the shot and although sometimes this can look great
more often than not it gives your image a slightly mundane look with the rule of
thirds you split the image into nine equal parts when you put your subjects
on one of these lines or you put a strong focal point on the intersections
between these lines it can really make your images stand out so you if you're
photographing a landscape try putting the horizon on the lower
upper horizontal line if there's more interesting things in the landscape put
it on the top line if there's an interesting sky put it on the bottom
line if you have a person riding a bike put them on one of the verticals facing
into the photo so they have looking room in the shot or if you're photographing a
skyline of a city try putting the interesting building on one of the
intersections it's just a way of starting to build your shot and
consciously thinking about what is going where now there are many ways you can
break this rule and sometimes shooting the subject bang in the center can look
really good or shooting in a really awkward position in the frame can make
the person or the viewer feel a certain way but you need to know about this rule
and use it regularly to then be able to know when to use it and when not to use
it and if you're going to break this rule with the center position subject
make sure it's perfectly in the middle something just off-center or not quite
on the 3rd sometimes looks a little weird and out of place the next tool you
can use to lead the viewers eye is sharpness by making a conscious decision
as to what part of the image will be in focus and what part will be out of focus
this really gives you the control over where that viewer looks you may want to
photograph a landscape where everything is in focus or you might want to get in
close to some details and just have one part of those details in focus so by
selectively getting the thing you want in focus and pushing other parts
slightly out of focus you can really start to build further on your
composition just don't shoot every single photo with a wide open aperture
giving you that shallow focus look take photos with a wide aperture and then
take some with a smaller aperture so you have a variety of photos in your
collection sometimes when you're at a location you can see lines in the
landscape and other times they're hard to find or just not there I always look
for leading lines that can help draw the viewers eye into the shot if you've
found a subject start looking for strong around that subject they can be curved
they can be straight or even in an s-curve pattern just something that will
basically point the viewer in the right direction using leading lines can be a
very strong compositional technique but are often hard to find and you may have
to really explore the subject or the location to find them now you may have
heard people talking about adding a foreground element but this is only part
of it you want to think of your images as having a foreground mid-ground and a
background when done right this will tend to give the image a 3-dimensional
feel so look for a full ground element but also a mid ground and a background
element sometimes you won't get all three and an image can look great just
as a background but it has to be pretty spectacular
or you might just get a foreground and a background that look great together so
just start thinking about foreground mid-ground and background and after a
while you'll start to see the different elements and you'll be able to put them
together in a really creative way when we're out and about or hiking to a new
location I'm always looking for shards of light or patches of light where I can
get a little bit of contrast in my images especially where the subject
might move through this light the eye tends to be drawn to the brighter parts
of your image so when you start to think of where the light is and how you can
get your subject in that light you can really draw the viewers eye right to
where you want it to be when using colors in your shot you need to think
about how these colors might complement or contrast each other now even though
some colors are very different they can still complement each other so if we
look at this image as well as the Land Rover not being in the light the color
really blends into the background whereas with this Jeep as it's red it
really stands out even though it's at the bottom left of the image and again
this is a way of directing the viewers eye to exactly where you want it to be
when photographing both man-made objects as well as natural things start to look
for shapes from triangles to circles repeating
lines two parallel lines so just start looking for shapes in your images or in
potential images that you might want to take you'll probably find that there'll
be circles triangles or shapes hidden within that landscape or hidden within
the photograph you're taking recomposing the shot might get this shape further in
your shot or just slightly out of your shot but it's something to think about
and something to become conscious about as long as the shape complements your
image you can really use it to your advantage and it can really help make
your image become a lot more compelling symmetry can help in a few different
ways it can be a mirror image where one side is almost a reflection of the other
you could look for repeating patterns or having lines disappearing off to a
single point it's quite tricky to line up properly but you can get some great
images by thinking about symmetry now these aren't all of the aspects of
composition but I really just wanted to introduce you to this subject it can be
very subjective and one person may love an image whereas another person may hate
it but if you think of these things when taking your photographs you should start
to get more compelling images now it may seem a little bit contrived to start
with you may even think that you shouldn't use rules just go out with
your gut and take nice images however if you're having trouble with your
composition start thinking about this list of different parts of the
composition and start thinking how you might be able to use them in your shot
after a while you'll start to think of them less and less and you'll start to
incorporate them into your images naturally and this is all part of