A simple way to learn the basic composition techniques is to visit an art gallery that features some of the paintings by the old masters or look at them in art books at your local library. What most people have come to believe are “pleasing”
Squint your eyes as you look these paintings. A single person is usually slightly off center. Groups of people or objects often form a triangular mass. The most light or the brightest colors often highlight the most important subject of the painting.
Over the years I have taken thousands of pictures and worked with many great photographers. Here are five techniques I have learned that work with digital and single lens reflex cameras.
1. LIGHT IS EVERYTHING! Walk around your subject. Study how the light falls on it. If the subject is stationery, will the subject look better earlier in the day or later in the afternoon or evening. If the subject is important and if you believe the light could be better at another time, come back. For assignments for American Forests (Famous & Historic Trees), I had to take 100 pictures of each tree. That means I had to arrive early in the morning and shoot until the last rays of the sun, from every possible angle. These assignments proved to be the best lessons in photo composition I have ever received.
2. MAKE YOUR PICTURES AS SHARP AS POSSIBLE. Remember if the individual's eyes are in focus, the face looks sharp. Eliminate shake. Use a tripod whenever possible for landscape shots. If not, lean against a building, a tree, a fence. Hold your camera against your eye rather than at your chest or while holding a digital camera away from you to look at the screen. In absence of any suitable place to rest the camera, use a “body tripod.” Carry a pad and sit on the ground with one knee up. Hold the camera with both hands and rest one elbow on your knee.
3. WHAT IS THE SUBJECT OF YOUR PICTURE? Decide before you take the picture. Is it the person’s face? His or her setting - a home, workplace, outdoors? An object your subject is holding? Decide in advance what your subject is. Then decide how best to feature that subject – with framing, with lighting, with photo angle, with close up.
4. USE "LINES OF DIRECTION" to direct your viewers’ eyes to the subject of your picture. These can be created by a circular garden path. A creek. . A line of trees. Or you can use a "psychological line of direction" – a person staring at another individual or an object. The viewer's eye looks where that person is looking.
5. GET CLOSE. The most common mistake of beginning photographers is to shoot from too far away - or to try to include too much in their pictures. Get close. Either by walking closer, using a zoom lens, or cropping your picture with software (e.g., Adobe Photoshop Elements or software that comes with most digital cameras today).
We were weaned on Nikon cameras and still use them. But more and more we use digital cameras. The sharpness of these cameras has improved tremendously (remember to use optical zoom rather than digital zoom for sharper pictures). The great advantage of digital is the opportunity to shoot hundreds of pictures and save or eliminate most of them on the spot. You can make hundreds of "mistakes" and still come up with a few great pictures - especially if you remember to photograph as the old master painters painted.
