Rules of Composition For Photographers

Rules of Composition For Photographers

By William Lulow

Note: This article was published back in August of last year. Never hurts to go over some of the rules.

Here are some tried and true guidelines for composing your scenic images. They are a bit different if you are doing portraits, but they are a good place to start.

• Fill The Frame / Cropping. …

Try to use the entire frame in the camera as much as you can. With 35mm-style cameras it is sometimes difficult to see the entire frame in the viewfinder. Cameras with ground-glass type viewfinders make it much easier to see the edges of your frame. But, given we are shooting digitally most of the time these days, you can always crop your image to make it stronger compositionally. You can also use the “live view” feature of your digital camera to get a preview of what’s in the viewfinder.

In this image, if I wasn’t paying attention to the whole frame, I might have cut off the pelican.

• Don’t Cut Off Limbs. …

You want to make sure that when you are photographing people, that their heads, arms and legs are not cut off unless you want to do that intentionally. With headshots, for instance, they are usually just head and shoulders.

• Understand The Rule Of Thirds. 

Here’s another example of how paying attention to this rule can improve your images:

Try to imagine how static this image would have been had I centered the boat in the middle of the frame. By composing the image so that the boat was way on the left, it actually serves to lead the eye into the shot and even to see the city that is off in the distance.

This is a common rule when shooting landscapes. But I have also added the caveat of not putting the horizon smack in the middle of the frame. Either compose with mostly sky or mostly land, depending on the subject matter.

• Use Frames. …

Here, a panorama framed by four trees.

There are many ways to frame your shots. Sometimes you can use a foreground treatment or an overhanging tree branch, anything to frame your subject and make it stand out more.

•  Make The Most Of Lead In Lines / Shapes. …

• Simplify – Know Your Focus. …

Usually, when doing a landscape or scene, decide what you want to focus on and then let the background go:

In this image, I wanted to concentrate on the boat and the shape the water was making and just let the could formations and the background do what it would.

• Watch The Background. …

You need to watch the background to decide whether you want it as sharp as the subject or, if you want to separate the subject from it:

This background needed to be soft to separate the berries. It was therefore, shot with a telephoto lens and a wider aperture to make for shallow depth of field and more selective focus.

• Look For Symmetry/Patterns:

Reflections always make for great compositions.

These are some of the main things to which you should pay attention for strong compositions that will both lead the viewer’s eye into your shots and help to maintain interest as well.