After workshops students often ask for critiques. One of the main areas where many can improve their skill is in their composition. Taking a mediocre comp and jucin’ it up to something fab is a way to boost your skills to the next level. This is also one of the areas where clients will notice a huge difference.
There are many elements playing together in your composition. When all these things work in harmony, then you have a kicking compositions (aka comp). This is Holly btw. What difference does that make? I was a painter before I was a photographer. While I haven’t been shooting as long as Mike, I have been painting much longer. The elements of composition carry over from my other life as a painter very easily into photography. My terminology shifts back and forth b/t painting terms and photographic terms, so if my terminology shifts while I’m writing, that’d be why.
The images on this post were provided by one of the students in the class. Thank you for volunteering for this post. I’m hoping it will help everyone in the class and those reading our blog.
There are basic compositional elements that affect each image. They are focal point, ground, flow, and distracting elements. You also have things that affect your composition that can be affected in PP (post processing) such as crop, vignettes, and pp choices.
In the 1st image you have a very typical composition. It is nice, but it can be better. The 1st thing to identify is the focal point. Is there a clear focal point? If you cannot identify the focal point, you can close your eyes - when you reopen your eyes they will go directly to the focal point of the image. In this shot there are competing focal points between the bride and the doors behind her. The doors are competing in this case - since its a portrait, it is assumed you want the focal point to be the person.
There are many ways to keep the beauty of the doors while keeping the focal point on the bride. You can play with perspective, ground (fore, middle, back), DOF, lighting, etc.
In this case, my eyes go to the bride and then want to rest on the doors, not the bride. I believe this is partly due to her size in contrast to the doors. And secondly, I believe it is b/c of the glowers on the bride and the sharpness of the doors. Your eyes will gravitate toward areas of contrast including contrast in brightness or contrast in sharpness.
The next thing I notice while looking at a composition is flow. The flow is how your eye travels through the image. In images with an excellent flow, there is a clear entry point, flow, exit and re-entry point. To see the flow in your images, close your eyes and when you reopen them - they should search the image for an easy entry point and land on the focal point. After that they begin to travel the image. Circular flow is more aesthetically pleasing. People can look at it for a longer period of time. That is something that makes an image great.
Your eyes easily travel around the image over and over again, allowing you to look at it for a prolonged period of time. The flow in the image is marked in green with the direction of the flow marked. When there isn’t a clear entry point or strong horizontal/ vertical lines it hinders the flow. Your eyes should travel to and away from the focal point without any distractions.
Image #1 has a better flow than image #2. Image #1 is a clear circular pattern where the bottom of the circle is completed with a vignette. The architecture of the arched doorway is assisting in the rest of the flow. The focal point should rest on the flow line ideally.
Image #2 has a common issue - competing elements. The negative space, the mission, and the tree are causing distractions. The bride is the focal point with the tree and the building competing b/c of the way the bride is situated in the frame. She is facing into the lesser amount of space with more negative space behind her. The tree and the mission makes your eye want to travel in different directions away from her. It makes it difficult to look at the image for more than a few moments because the flow is conflicted. By rearranging the composition while shooting you can layer the bride b/t the mission and the sky and create more sense of ground and eliminate the distractions.
The angle of image #2 is very interesting. It makes the bride look bigger as you get down and shoot up - in contrast to the size of the mission, this helps retain the size needed for the bride to remain the focal point in front of a larger object. By shifting the bride in front of the mission you can also eliminate the strong vertical and horizontal lines (in red) breaking the flow of the image.
Another cheat when you have strong lines like this is use of tilt. Tilt your camera so that the rectangles become triangles and you have an instant composition boost. Triangles are more ascetically pleasing and work better with flow. (Triangles are noted in yellow). All good compositions have triangles.
Image #3 has a dominant triangle - the bride in her cupcake wedding gown. The angle of the triangle is more interesting too. It also affects the flow. The vignette, the tree, and the bride are acting as the lines that carry your eye through the image.
Ideally you want to use the space in your image to communicate mood/ personality. Tiny subjects with lots of negative space around them tend to emit a bleak, somber feeling. Larger central images and less negative space tend to have the opposite affect.
All three of these images have a very similar composition. The focal point is almost dead center in each shot, the flow is a bit awkward, and strong vertical/ horizontal lines are dominant distracting elements. By adjusting these things, you will end up with a totally different composition.
The easiest and most dramatic changes are learning to use your entire canvas…aka frame. And getting your focal point of of center. (Rule of Thirds). Even if you change nothing else, you will see a clear difference in how the comp looks. Remember when you were little and your Mom would give you a sheet of paper to draw on and you’d stick a little guy right smack in the center and have him swimming in a sea of nothing all around him? Composition is exactly that. It is how YOU place the subject in the frame. When choosing how to frame your subject, take the background into consideration BEFORE you start shooting. Figure out how you want the subject to interact with her surroundings. Look at the subject like she is gonna be the little stick man on your white paper. Shift her around until you like where she is at. Add the background elements to enhance the space around her. Separate the space by using perspective, light, leading lines, etc.
Many people confuse composition with posing. They think if they can just get better poses, they’d be great But that isn’t it at all. Its what YOU do with the subject that matters the most. In my head anyway. You can take a ho hum pose and make it look awesome b/c of what you choose to do with your comp. That is why you can have 12 photogs at a shoot and no one gets the same exact shot. As a photog, you have the chance to capture your client’s personality, mood, and beauty. It’s an incredible honor, and you can capture so much even if the client isn’t a super model if you have a good grasp on your comp.
Here is the one shot I took during the workshop. I would have tweaked it more to make it flow a bit better, but its good enough to get the idea.
The triangles are bigger and are nestled. The flow intersects the focal point, follows the vignette, round to her skirt, up her gown, across her arm, and back to her face. She is off center facing into the negative space on the left. That is also why she is off-center to the right and looking to the left - those go together. Her size fills most of the door, so the door isnt competing with her. There is clear ground (fore: Bride, middle: arches, back: door). The lighting was used to create separation and force the ground a bit more than it appears without the additional lighting. The strong horizontal line was utilized into the triangle and the strong vertical line was covered 3/4 of the way with the subject.
Humans are creatures of habit. Let that be a blessing, instead of a hinderace to you. Determine what you are doing and it is most likely strung thoughout your most of images. That compositonal overlay can be placed over several pieces of my work with little tweakage and looks pretty much the same. When composition becomes understood and intentional, you start to move into a style where your work emits cohesion. It eventually becomes easy to see before you start shooting. You can see what you want, and have a clear idea of how you want it to turn out after PP is complete. This moves you away from so called ‘lucky’ shots, and up to a whole other level where you can repeat great compositions over and over.
Loading ...