The overall composition and placement of objects in the frame can make or break your photos. You may know the rule of thirds and the golden part, but composition goes beyond that, and most of it is about simple geometry.
There are some people whose composition comes naturally. For example, my wife can pick up the camera and take a perfectly composed photo every time. I have a friend who can do the same. They are all talented artists; I’m not. For others not so fortunate, myself included, the right image composition is something that takes research, and it’s been a never-ending journey for me. But one thing I realized a long time ago is that most compositions are based on geometry.
I could write a chapter on each of the following; Here, I’m just scratching the surface. However, I hope this brief summary will provide you with a guide on what to do further if you want to dive into the world of songwriting.
1. Starting with the basics, the rule of thirds is a simple composition technique that is probably the first technique most of us learn in our introduction to photography. In case you don’t know, it involves splitting the screen into a tic-tac-toe board. At its simplest, we are placing the horizon line on one of the horizontal lines. We can also place objects where lines intersect. We get good-looking images, but the interface can become cliché. There are so many rules about the third picture, that it sometimes seems like we’ve all seen them before.
The image below is cropped in two ways. On the left, it is followed by the rule of thirds, on the right, according to the golden ratio (see below).
2. Symmetry is a powerful tool that is often mocked, especially in landscape photography. Have you ever been told that you shouldn’t put the horizon line in the center of the frame? Ah, forget that and look for scenes where the lower part of the image mirrors the top instead.
It also doesn’t need to be symmetrical on top and bottom. Left and right also work, as does diagonal or rotational symmetry.
Square frames work especially well for symmetric images because they have four reflections, plus the four rotational symmetries inherent in their shape. Symmetry can bring a sense of balance and stillness to a photograph.
3. Most of us then move on to learning according to the golden ratio. It’s a more aesthetically appealing way of dividing an image than the rule of thirds. But it’s not just about placing the horizon closer to the center of the frame than it is in the third.
You may have seen pictures of spirals like these overlapping pictures and photographs.
Unlike the rule of thirds intersections, this is not just about positioning the horizon or even points on the image, but also placing objects, sometimes of different sizes, in areas of the frame. Figure. It also guides us where the lines flow through the image. It’s a technique used by many great artists and photographers. Indeed, Henri Cartier-Bresson has spent his photographic career exploring this.
The ratio in the golden section is based on a series of numbers that we call the Fibonacci Sequence. That’s where each number is added to the number before it in the sequence to get the following number, thus:
1 + 0 = 1,
1 + 1 = 2,
2 + 1 = 3,
3 + 2 = 5,
5 + 3 = 8,
8 + 5 = 13,
13 + 8 = 21,
and such.
These numbers can be graphed and the resulting proportions are found everywhere in the natural world, most famously during shell formation.
The sequence of numbers named after the 12th-century mathematician Leonardo Bonacci, is also known as Fibonacci, but it was known long before that. Roman architect Vitruvius (80-70 BC) used proportions in his designs. However, long before that, the Indian mathematician of the 4th century BC, Virahanka, had discovered the same sequence of numbers. Furthermore, the triangles that form the Great Pyramid of Giza are also in keeping with the proportions and were built between about 2550 and 2490 BC.
In the following image you can see how JMW Turner used the golden part spiral to estimate the position of objects in the frame, the cover shape of the clouds and sea, plus the position of the falling horizon to the edge of the frame. Of course, in landscape photography this is much more difficult than in painting because the composition of the natural world rarely matches our ideals when we look through the viewfinder.
The yellow part is easy to see to the human eye. It evokes a sense of aesthetic completeness. To us, an image built to match the proportions of the golden section looks just right.
4. If you’ve scrolled through the different crop overlays in Lightroom – tap O on your keyboard – next to the golden spiral, you’ll spot a golden triangle. It is where a straight line is drawn from one corner to another and then perpendicular lines run from that corner to the other two corners. This is such a little used compositor that I don’t have a single photo in my catalog to illustrate it.
However, artist Frans Snyders has used these strong diagonal lines in many of his brutal animal and hunting paintings. The Boar Hunt is a prime example. Notice the bold and bold diagonal line that runs from the bottom left to the top right, and the line that runs perpendicular to that line to the bottom right corner.
That diagonal composition is suitable for violent scenes. While composition works there seems to be a tension there, a dissonance leaves the viewer in a dilemma. It is the polar opposite of the calm evoked by symmetry.
5. Another technique is to reduce the price of the rectangle. Draw a 90-degree line through a rectangle, positioned so that it forms a square at one end. You can repeat that at the other end of the rectangle, thus creating two parallel lines.
As with the example on the left below, the topic(s) of interest can be on one or both of those lines, or you can put the subjects in boxes, like the example on the right.
6. Rectangle containing other geometric shapes. Draw lines from corner to corner, corner to midpoint, and midpoint to midpoint, and you’ll have a geometric pattern called the armature of the rectangle.
Again, this can be used as a guide to structure the composition, using both the intersection points and the areas formed by the lines, as in the example below. Note that in photography it is rarely possible to match objects to the intersections of this shape, and any intersection or area is unused, but it can be a useful tool to use. in composition, especially when cropping.
The armature pattern can also be simplified, like the image at the top of this article.
7. As we have seen with all the examples above, the placement of objects in a frame so that our mind easily accepts them follows the rules of mathematics and geometry. So looking for the simple geometric shapes suggested in our photos – not necessarily the actual shapes, but the ones that suggest to our mind – is another effective way. to create an attractive image. If the individual objects align with each other, our brains will think of them as a straight line, like the dogs in Snyders’ wound earlier. Similarly, three spaced objects will naturally form a triangle. I wrote more about that phenomenon in a previous article.
We can break these rules if we want. However, we should carefully consider the reasons for doing so; There must be a clear purpose for the unusual compositions, or the photo will look terrible.
A great way to train your eyes is to experiment with the cutting tool. I think it is the most powerful tool in any editing software for learning about composition. With practice, you will begin to visualize good compositions through the viewfinder. If composing doesn’t come naturally to you, that’s something you can learn.
As I said at the beginning, this has only scratched the surface of compositing techniques, and I encourage you to dig deeper into those techniques. There is much more on this subject that I will write about another time. If you found this interesting, you might like my recent articles on perspective and subject separation.
Do you consciously consider composition when framing a photo? Or, perhaps you are one of those lucky people who can always see a piece of work without even thinking about it. It would be great to hear about the methods you use.
