Video:Photography Composition: Overview

Transcript:Photography Composition: Overview

Hi I'm Chris Davis for About.com.   Every time you take a picture you're composing a shot, whether you know it or not.  Let's take a closer look at some different elements of photographic composition.

What is Composition in Photography?

Photographic composition means the purposeful arrangement of elements within a picture.  Simply put, how and where you place your subject in the frame.  There isn't any hard set rules to composition, however, there are some guidelines and basic principles.  

Using Rule of Thirds for Composition

The most common being the rule or guideline of thirds.  Looking through your viewfinder imagine dividing the image into three vertical and three horizontal portions.  Essentially drawing a tic tac toe board across your picture.  You should try to position the most important elements of your image along the grid lines.   Furthermore where the lines cross you should place key elements or points of interest.   This will help create a better composition to your overall picture.  

Using Color for Composition

Color is a powerful element that can be used to isolate or highlight a subject.  Placing two opposing colors together causes a significant contrast accentuating each individual color.  The intensity or tone of the color will also change the overall feel or emotion.  Bright vivid colors are energetic and active while a relaxed feeling is created with muted colors of similar tones.

Using Balance for Composition

Balance within a photo can create interesting composition.  Whether you symmetrically place items to create a static feel or asymmetrically arrange your subject for a more appealing image the effect is easy to achieve.  Balance can be created with your actual subject or with elements in the image such as color, shapes or light and darkness.

Using Lines for Composition

Leading Lines are a powerful composition tool.  They can connect the main subject with a secondary subject, or bring together the foreground and the background.  They draw your in your viewer and force them to follow the lines to the desired point.

Using Depth of Field for Composition

Depth of field will drastically impact the composition of an image.  It can isolate a subject from its background and foreground by using a shallow depth of field or it can put the same subject in context by including more focus of the surroundings, with a larger depth of field.

These are just a few principles of composition. Try variations of each as well as combining the techniques.  To learn more check us out on the web at About.com.  Thanks for watching.