What is in your photo? What draws your eye? Composition is the arrangement of elements in a frame. Compose your image in a way that makes it meaningful and interesting and can tell a story. Think about the relation of your subjects to each other and to the frame. See resources below to learn more about composition.
Here are images of a Black and Yellow Garden Spider. Camera placement is a compositional choice. Each view shows different details and gives different ideas about the subject.
Upward dramatic view
Eye level view and scaling of subject
Foreboding downward view
Side profile view
Here is the same idea of compositional choice with a different subject. Camera placement can be a combination of an artistic choice and a pragmatic choice; in a production environment, interesting shots need to be taken with safety and discretion.
Wide shot, location context and nice portrait
Full front view of the weld, dramatic
Opposite view of the weld, decent
Behind the welder, better view of welder gear and working position
Sub-framing is the technique of shooting a frame within a frame. Sub-framing provides depth, geometric and subject interest, and can add context to the subject's surroundings.
Fortress framing to a candid subject
Landscape context and interest to distant subject
Natural vignette window view
Surprising star shape view to the beach
A cousin to the sub-framing technique is a technique I like to call "dirtying the frame". Shooting through more texture-like features than definite shapes to focus on the subject. Again, good for depth, subject interest and context, and geometric interest in more loose terms than above.
The Batman (2022) "dirtying the frame" shot
Bok Tower Gardens all in one frame
The zoo fencing adds emotional interest to the animal
Slow shutter 1/80 sec captures the tree blur
Our sense of scale is a compositional consideration we can play to great effect. By our choice of focal length and the positioning of elements to each other and the frame, subjects can seem real to size or larger than life.
Cropping is a post-shooting technique of choosing what stays in the frame. It has the practical purpose of adjusting aspect ratio for digital and print media and the creative purpose changing the story of the frame. It is a simple but powerful technique that only a few truly master.
Dramatic architectural and far-off line convergence
Contrast of pillars and closer view of line convergence
Full view of water flow
Crop for golden spiral comp and color contrast close-up
Resources
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