Hi, and a very warm welcome to Episode 174 of the Photography Explained podcast. I’m your host, Rick, and in each episode, I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 27 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details. I’m a professionally qualified photographer based in England with a lifetime of photographic experience, which I share with you in my podcast.
Here is the answery bit
Photography composition is what you include in a photo, how you arrange the elements of a photo, and what you do not include in a photo. How you compose a photo will determine the success of a photo or not. You should think hard about the composition before you take a photo.
Your composition is what someone looking at your photo sees – so it is very important!
The rules of composition can help you to take better-composed photos, but there is a step before that, which is the one controlled solely by you. And I will talk about what you are doing, which is more than just the rules of composition.
So this is very important, right? Composition is what you are taking a photo of, which is all anyone looking at a photo of yours sees. So we need to get the composition the best we can,
You can listen to the episode here
Or carry on reading – entirely up to you.
What is a good composition?
A good composition creates a photo that is interesting and pleasing and guides the viewer around the content of the photo. A good composition is one that a viewer will spend time looking at. A good composition holds the viewer’s attention. A good composition is the starting point for a good, or indeed great, photo.
OK, that’s great – but how do I learn this stuff about composition?
Composition has been around for as long as humans have been creating pictures. You can look at the composition of, oh, I don’t know, any classical painter and learn what makes a great composition. There are many examples in the visual arts, so you have no excuse! Look at what Leonardo Da Vinci came up with – I have a soft spot for him, having been to the small town in Tuscany called Vinci, where you can see some examples of his fantastic work.
You can, of course, learn from any great artist, be they a painter or a photographer or another artist – you will find that they have one thing in common – every great work they have created, every great photo, they all have a great composition. Well, I think I am OK saying that. I am sure someone will point out a great photo with a rubbish composition now that I have said that!
I recommend that you become a student of composition. I study composition when I am out and about doing my usual daily stuff. I am fascinated with how things relate to each other. I spend more time than is good for me thinking about composition.
It costs you nothing other than your time to think about and study composition, and every time you do this, your awareness will grow, directly impacting how you compose your photos. You just need to start consciously thinking about composition.
And start to think more about what you are taking photos of. Before you take photos, that is. This is a great way to improve your photos – think.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself before taking a photo.
- What are you taking a photo of?
- Why are you taking the photo?
- What are you going to do with the photo?
- What are you going to include in the photo?
- What are you not going to include in the photo?
What are you taking a photo of? Having this one thought might improve your composition on its own. I discussed this in the last episode: what do you want from your photography?
You know what you are taking a photo of. You know what the main subject is, right? That is an excellent place to start. So, what else are you going to include in your composition? And, as important, sometimes more important, is what you do not include in a photo.
And there is that last question – the harsh one – why would anyone care about the photo that you have taken? I know it sounds harsh, but have that thought present when you are taking photos – this has stopped me from taking photos in the past that I was not sure about.
And another great question to ask yourself is this.
If I take this photo, will I be bothered enough to spend time editing it?
OK – enough questions – something else I would like you to know.
Light
Photography is drawing with light. That is literally what the word photography means. So, as well as becoming a student of composition, we need also to become students of light. When you take a photo, you are recording the light. I won’t go into the technical side of how, as I have not got a clue between you and me, and knowing this will not help me. I am happy to accept that when I press the shutter button, some magic happens, and I have a photo of what I was looking at!
You need to be aware of the light’s direction, intensity, colour, how it lights up the composition and how moving around the light changes.
Light is free; we use it to transform photos from dull to interesting. And that big old free light source is called the sun. Be aware of where it is, and remember that it is always moving relative to where we are at any one time, and clouds can diffuse it to give lovely, soft lighting.
Sunrise and sunset are great times to take photos, but we must extend that to before and after sunrise or sunset. Sometimes much longer. This is when the magic happens.
Get an app so you can find out the direction of the sun at any time in any place.
As with composition, be aware of the light and what it is doing, not just when taking photos. Become a student of light. Learn to think about light more. Learn to love light.
OK, I will stop there.
How do the different elements of a photo relate to each other?
This is the biggy for me – how the elements of composition relate to each other. And most of the time, you have control of this simply by moving around.
Work out what the important elements of your photo are and look at how they relate to each other.
Move around, and you see how the relationship of different things changes.
And also, when you move around, what the light is doing changes.
Moving and looking is the special compositional trick I want you to work on. Walking around and looking and thinking. Before you take a photo.
OK – let’s move on to the nuts and bolts of composition.
The rules of composition
Now, these are not rules; they are more like guidelines that can help you get better compositions. There are many of these rules, and I will not go into all of them here. Here are some of my favourites.
- Rule of thirds
- Leading lines
- Balanced composition
- Foreground, mid-ground, background
- Foreground interest and depth
- Fill the frame
- Minimalisation
- Diagonals and triangles
- Patterns and textures
And then there are these
- Symmetry
- Golden ratio
- Golden triangle
- Golden spiral
- Negative space
- Positive space
- Centred composition
- Frame within a frame
- Rule of odds
- Dynamic symmetry
- Centre dominant eye
and many others. Check out episode 14 for a bit more on the rules of composition. I will not go on about all of them here; some I have never consciously used, and some I use all the time. I will talk about one of them now, though.
The really helpful rule of thirds
This is nice and simple but so hard to describe in words. Look at a photo, and put two horizontal lines, one a third up, one two-thirds up. Now draw two vertical lines, one a third in from the left, one one a third in from the right.
My iPhone has these in the default camera app.
So you have four lines and four points where the lines meet.
How do these help you?
Simple. For any photo with the sky in, put the horizon on either the upper or lower line. This stops you and me from putting it in the middle, cutting a photo in half. This single conscious act will improve any composition.
And the two horizontal lines help us to align things horizontally.
And if you put the subject of a photo where two lines meet, that works nicely, too. Again, we are taking the subject out from the middle, which, most of the time, will help to create a more interesting composition.
Don’t do this if you are taking photos of people.
And this is the point – not every rule works for every photo. There are many photography composition rules – have a look at them and see which you think you might use.
But apply the rule of thirds as I have described, and you will see a rapid improvement in your compositions. And in doing this, you are also starting to think more. So get cracking with the rule of thirds, but consider this the start of your journey to take better photos.
Learn the rules
Try out the rules and see which ones work for you. We are all different; I can’t tell you what will work for you because there are many variables. But give some of them a go, and it will help you think more about your compositions.
The rules that I use help me with the photos that I take. This is the point. Find the rules that will help you and learn how to use them. They will help you take better-composed photos and also help you begin to develop your own style and your own look.
Break the rules
I don’t get this – many people say to learn the rules of photography and then break them. Really? I am never sure what that means, so I will move on from that.
My one-photo rule
Check out episode 152 – How My One Photo Rule Will Help You Take Better Photos for lots more on the rule of photography that I created – I will come back to this in episode 181.
Moving around – the secret to great composition
Move around and see what other views you get of something. My secret super special ninja technique for getting better compositions is to move around and see what changes.
Moving around is the secret to great composition, moving around and looking. And let’s not constrain ourselves to eye level. High and low viewpoints can transform a composition, as can moving forward and back. And to the left and the right. You can change the foreground, middle ground and background and how they relate.
So, my number 1 composition technique is moving and looking.
Look at your photos.
I come onto this in episode 179, which is not due out until next month, so let’s look at that quickly here. You really need to look at your photos. Why would someone else like the photos that you have created? Why should someone care about your photos?
It is a harsh world out there, with so many photos online; what will you do to get noticed? What will you do differently to make your photos stand out, to avoid being just another photo instantly dismissed on social media feeds?
Learn to really look at the photos that you have taken.
Look at other people’s photos.
While on the subject, look at the photos that great photographers have created. Again, I will talk about this much more in episode 179, but I will give you this one steer for now.
You know what you like photos of, right? Pick one thing you love looking at photos of, and find the best photographer on the planet and look at their work. Just one photographer who takes photos of something that you are interested in.
And look at their photos, try to work out what makes them great.
What is the perfect composition?
There isn’t one. The best composition is the one that gives you the most interesting and appealing photo.
And there is the camera stuff, too.
When I think of composition, I tend to forget the small matter of the camera and the different settings and what they can do to a composition. Here are a few things to think about – I will talk about these in another episode.
- Aperture
- Shutter speed
- Focal length
- Focal point
- Depth of field
- Wide angle lens
- Standard lens
- Telephoto lens
- Zoom lens
Actually, I might have to rethink – there might be another episode here on composition! I will record this episode and have a think.
The talky bit
Composition, for me, is all about what you want to take a photo of and making that the best image that you can. For me, this is the thing that you need to concentrate on. What is important in photography is the final image. That is what we should be focussing on, no pun intended. Work hard on your composition, and you will take your photos to the next level. And it follows that you will become a better photographer, right? This is what we all want to do.
Sure, there are rules of photography, but they don’t help you pick an interesting subject; they give you some guidelines for composing a photo. There is the step before this, which is the why bit.
The rules of composition are the how bit. And there is nothing wrong with them, far from it. They are very helpful. And I recommend you look at them all and decide which ones will help you. Don’t try to learn all of them; give the ones you like a look of a go and see what you get.
There are some rules of composition that I struggle with, to be honest; there is some quite complicated and funky stuff out there.
But use the rule of thirds, and something happens straight away, which I will remind you of. If you have been taking photos with the horizon in the middle, just moving that to the upper or lower line will dramatically improve most photos. That one simple thing. It will help you get the horizon level, which is a bonus. This is such a great tip for landscape photography.
And there is one thing that has, quite literally, just popped into my head as I write this.
You need to get the best composition you can when taking a photo. Don’t just take photos of whatever; try to make the composition work afterwards in Lightroom, Photoshop, or whatever you use. No, that is not the plan here. Get the composition right in camera. Now, you might need to take more than one photo to get the best composition – that is fine. And in time, once you have worked on this, the day will come when you can take one photo and move on, which is our endpoint.
I used to take, say, ten photos of the same thing and hoped to have a great composition somewhere when I looked at the photos on my computer.
Do not do this – work on the before you take the photo bit. Recompose if you are not happy, but do this, trying to get the best composition as you take the photo. You can quickly turn a good photo into a great one by doing this; the more you practise, the quicker this will happen.
We can and should all be working on this all the time, not just beginner photographers, all of us.
Blimey that came out of nowhere, but I’m glad I remembered it!
What if I use my phone to take photos and not a camera?
All of the above applies. You are just using a different device to take photos. Taking my iPhone as an example, using the default camera app as it is, the grid is there for the rule of thirds. That is how helpful and significant the rule of thirds is – it is there every time I take a photo with my iPhone.
The difference with a phone is that you do not have a viewfinder to peer through; you just have the screen. Now, if you have only ever taken photos with a phone, this will be your norm, but if you started taking photos with a camera, you might need help.
Or if you are old like me, you will definitely struggle with this!
And if you go from a phone to a camera, you will have the viewfinder to get used to.
Taking photos with a phone is different from taking photos with a camera first because of the physical size and shape differences – a camera has been designed to take photos. In contrast, the poor old phone has to do much more than a camera.
But everything I have said can apply to taking photos with a phone, which, after all, is another device for taking photos.
My advice to take better photos includes putting your camera on a tripod – should you do this with a phone? It contradicts one of the benefits of a phone, its size and convenience, but yes, you can still take better photos with a phone by putting it on a tripod, in my opinion. This will still help you take better photos, as counterintuitive as it is.
If you think of your phone as an alternative device to a camera to take photos with, if we think about this, why not put your phone on a tripod?
What if I use a film camera?
Everything applies just the same. You don’t have the luxury of what you get with digital cameras to help you, so you just have to get it bang on in camera.
So, getting the right composition starts and ends with what you point your camera at!
What do I do?
I photograph buildings. I use the widest focal length and fill the frame with the building or interior space. There isn’t much space around my photos, and this is something that I did not even know I was doing until it was pointed out to me.
And when I am on holiday doing my travel photography stuff, I again use the widest focal length or the shortest – I don’t often use the bits in between.
For my travel photography work, I convey a sense of depth with one prominent foreground detail. And I love capturing moving water.
I do lots more, but I will come onto this in future episodes. But I do think about the composition before I raise my camera to my eye and before I take my camera out of my bag.
And as I said, as I go about my daily business, I am always looking at how things relate to each other and what the light is doing. I think about composition a lot; it has become an interest of mine.
And I have told you which rules of composition I use.
I try to take better photographs every time – that is always my aim. And it always starts with the composition.
Composition is king!!
This is what I do.
Some thoughts from the last episode
What do you want out of your photography? Well, with hindsight, that is another title that could have been better. But having said that, the feedback was very positive, which was nice, of course.
- What are you going to take photos of?
- What are you going to put in your photos?
- Who is going to see your photos?
This sums it up nicely. We can talk all we want about the endless number of things in photography, but these three things override everything else.
I will add one more thing here, harsh as it may sound.
- Why would anyone care about your photos?
Next episode
How To Take Photos – Getting Started. This is one of my favourite things. I love this bit. And it might not be what you are expecting. I am going to leave it there.
Well that was the plan. But there was something that I had forgotten. So this is the next episode – How To Use Your Gear To Improve Your Compositions.
Ask me a question.
If you have a question you would like me to answer, email me at sales@rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk or head over to the podcast website photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start.
And if you want to say hi, please do – I love hearing from my listeners.
Get an email from me.
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OK – I am done.
This episode was brought to you by, erm, OK, a New Year, a new me. I am having a healthy phase, so I eat fewer cheese and pickle sandwiches and no crisps. No crisps. I know. So, this episode was brought to you by a (homemade) chicken and mayo sandwich washed down with an ice-cold Diet Pepsi before I settled in my homemade, acoustically cushioned recording emporium. But no crisps.
I’ve been Rick McEvoy; thanks again very much for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast (it says here) and for giving me 27 ish minutes of your valuable time. This episode will be about 23 minutes long after I have edited out the mistakes and other bad stuff.
I hope to see you on the next episode.
Take care and stay safe.
Cheers from me, Rick
That was the podcast episode.
Want to know more?
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And finally a little bit about me
Finally, yes this paragraph is all about me – check out my Rick McEvoy Photography website to find out more about me and my architectural, construction, real estate and travel photography work. I also write about general photography stuff, all in plain English without the irrelevant detail.
Thank you
Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).
Cheers from me Rick
