What Are The Rules Of Composition?

Welcome to Episode 13 of the photography explained podcast. In this episode, what are the rules of composition?

Now, last week I spoke about composition and I hoped that having done a full podcast episode on it, I could say the word composition so it’s not a good start!

I’m your host Rick, and each week I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant details. My aim is to explain things in just enough detail to help us with our photography and no more.

In this episode, I’m going to tell you what the rules of composition are, and not necessarily why they’re important, but more what they are. I actually enjoyed recording this episode because I had to do some work and actual research. And I’ve come out with a list which is longer than any of the other lists that I’ve found, which is proving that I’m ad-libbing because that’s not on my script!

I will caveat this episode by saying that rules are of course there to be broken. So don’t worry, this is just really getting those cogs whirring on composition.

So here are the rules of composition that I can find, and I put them in alphabetical order.

Here’s the list.

Balance
Centred composition
Colour theory

Complementary elements
Contrasting colours
Cropping

Depth of field
Diagonals and triangles
Don’t cut off limbs (but the top of the head is fine!)

Fill the frame
Foreground interest and depth or as I’ve written it, foreground internet and depth.
Framing

Golden Ratio
Golden spiral
Golden Triangle

High or low juxtaposition
Leading lines
Left to right

Negative space
Patterns
Reduce clutter

Reflections
Repeat elements
Rule of odds (never heard of that one).

Rule of thirds
Scale and hierarchy
Simplicity and minimalism

Space to move
Symmetry
Viewpoint

Blimey, that’s quite a list, isn’t it? Don’t worry, though, I’m not saying you have to learn to use all of them. Far from it. Obviously, rules of composition are a visual thing, which is hard to describe in words, which is why I’m just telling you what they are. That’s easy for me to say.

You can listen to the episode here

Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!

So you know, so you can go and check them out yourselves and see which ones you like and which ones you don’t? Yeah, it’s a big list. Don’t worry about it. In the next episode, I’ll tell you the ones I use. And also why I use them in my mainly architectural and landscape photography.

This stuff applies to whatever you take photos of

And don’t let that put you off that I’m talking about architectural photography, which is what I do, because a lot of these rules and principles, guidelines, tips, tricks, techniques, call them what you want, apply to varying degrees to any genre of photography.

So why do we have rules?

Well, these rules have evolved over the years, photography has been around for a good 180-odd years, obviously painting and art for much longer. And the rules of composition apply not only to photography but to other forms of art as well.

Yes, I know photography is art. So that’s a scary thought because I’m not a very artistic person.

They’re not really rules.

I hate the term rules of photography, rules of composition.

Now they’re not rules. These are ideas, techniques, and things to think about. But they are based on sound compositional principles, which can help us all with our photography. They are good to be aware of, they do help you and I give them – sorry transcript meltdown here “all the go dark to do the wallet ones”. What was that I said??

Take one (rule), try it, and see what the results are. And then try another one. I could say it’s not rules, it’s ideas, but it’s also making you and I think more about our composition. That’s the whole point of this episode really.

It’s not about the rules, it’s about thinking about composition.

But if I made this episode, how to think about composition, you’d all be going (quite rightly) so vague and woolly, there’d be nothing for you to take away. Now I’ve given you a list of things that you can look into and research and apply.

It’s giving you something actionable, which is always good.

Quick top Lightroom tip.

If you use Lightroom, great, this will apply to you, if not fast forward 30 seconds (ish). Some of these rules you can find in the crop tool in Lightroom. To get to the crop tool in Lightroom, press the key R (for crop?) and it takes you straight there from anywhere.

And then if you press O, you can cycle through the different cropping things. It’s got rules of third and golden spiral and some other stuff that I tend not to use.

What do I use?

I use the rule of thirds – this one is the default cropping screen on my Lightroom. It helps my compositions.

These rules are so significant, especially the ones I use, that Lightroom has the facility built in for you to apply these rules when you are editing your photos.

So let’s recap composition

A good composition provides an image that is pleasing to the viewer and gives interest and makes the viewer look at the photo and explore the content. Now I wrote that, yes, I was reading it out but it’s all my own words.

What else am I gonna say about composition?

Well, next episode, I’m going to talk about the rules of composition that I use and how I apply them in my architectural photography. There are quite a few rules here that I don’t use.

And there’s one that’s not in there, which isn’t a rule of photography, but it’s a rule of mine.

Less is more

Less is more is a principle that I apply to pretty much everything in my photography now. Having made a really ham-fisted mess of learning and doing far too much, I’ve simplified things. So I’m doing less rather than more. So like I say the next episode is this

Next episode – what rules of composition do I use?

And going forward?

So I’ve got a list of a list of episode titles and I was looking at it the other day thinking, do people really want to hear this? So I’m having a rethink about that. Because on the one hand, whilst I thought it was important to talk about composition, I’d like to get back to some of the fundamentals of photography.

So if you’re listening to this, and if you’ve heard me say that you clearly are listening to this so um, yeah, we’ll just ignore that.

Please let me know if there’s anything that you want me to explain. I’m getting quite a few listeners now. Let’s just check the numbers. I’ve gone too quick on this one – I always said I wouldn’t try and fill for time but hey, we’re here now. So let’s just make the most of those 10 minutes together.

How many downloads have I had to date?

225 since I started and now I am on episode 13 plus the introductory one, so very pleasing. The growth is good. It will be great to hear from anyone really who wants to ask a question.

Anyway, so next is what rules of composition I use.

You’ve probably gathered by now I’m not a polished skilled broadcaster – no I’m just the bloke talking in the echoey room. I hope you appreciate the improved acoustics today.

Okay, so for the last time – the next episode

Is what rules of competition do I use? There is a very important point to this because it gives you a much-reduced number to look at and I’ll tell you how I apply them and how they helped me with not only my commercial photography work but also my personal, landscape and travel photography work. So yep, that’s it for now.

Thank you

Thank you very much for listening and very kind of you to spare 10 minutes of your day with me. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Apologies if a bit woolly but if you did enjoy it, please leave a nice review and rating wherever you get your podcasts from. And please subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. If you didn’t enjoy it, or thought I’ve been poor, please don’t leave a bad review – just send me an email and tell me about it – sales@rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk.

And please check out my website Rick McEvoy Photography where you can find out all about me and my architectural and construction photography work and also my photography blog with lots of good stuff on it. As I said before, if there’s something you want me to explain let me know and I’ll add it to the list of episodes on my (Photography Explained Podcast) website.

This episode has been brought to you by the power of a cheese and crisp sandwich.

What’s next? In the next Photography Explained Podcast episode 14 – What rules of composition do I use?

I’ve been Rick McEvoy thanks again for listening, and I’ll see you on the next episode.

Cheers from me, Rick

OK – that was the podcast episode.

Want to know more?

Head over to the Start page on the Photography Explained Podcast website to find out more.

And here is the list of episodes published to date – you can listen to any episode straight from this page which is nice.

Let me know if there is a photography thing that you want me to explain and I will add it to my list. Just head over to the This is my list of things to explain page of this website to see what is on there already.

Let me send you stuff

I send out a weekly email to my subscribers. It is my take on one photography thing, plus what I have been writing and talking about. Just fill in the box and you can get my weekly photographic musings straight to your inbox. Which is nice.

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