These composition photography tips will ensure that your images are as satisfying as they can be. Perhaps more than any single factor, the way that you compose your images will determine whether they succeed or fail in conveying what the scene you are photographing means to you.
Tip #1-The Rule of Thirds
The most famous of all composition tips is the so-called ‘rule of thirds’. What this rule basically says is that you should mentally divide your frame up into nine equally sized blocks, with two parallel lines dividing the frame horizontally, and two vertically. You should then arrange the features inside the frame such that the most interesting parts lie along those imaginary lines, and particularly at their intersections.
Following this rule when you think about where to put your subject will also help you to avoid the boring‘cross-hairs’ look of dead-center images, and will help to draw the viewer into your scene. Check Beginning Photography Tips for other ideas.
Tip #2- Look for Lines
The human eye is very sensitive to lines and likes to follow them – so the next up in our series of composition photography tips is to look for lines in your scenes and work them into your composition. These lines can be anything from the sweep of a road to rows of vines. You can even use the invisible ‘eye-lines’ which flow from the eyes of a person, statue or animal towards the thing they are looking at.
The important thing is to work out where they are pointing and frame that nicely. A classic view is to frame a road winding from the one corner at the bottom of your scene to the opposite corner at the top, letting it shrink away with perspective to demonstrate distance.
Tip #3-Try a Different Angle
As cameras become ever-more commonplace, with pretty much everyone now packing a decent camera inside their mobile phones, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. One of the best ways to add some interest to your shots is to see things from a different perspective – that’s why the next in our series of composition photography tips is to try a different angle.
So next time you’re snapping away, try getting right down to the ground and looking up at your subject – or conversely, why not clamber up on chair or table and shoot the scene from above. You’ll instantly see the difference that a change in perspective can make!
Tip-#4 Isolate Your Interest
The last in our series of composition photography tips is to isolate a detail of the scene that sums up what it is about it that interests you. So for example, next time you’re bowled over by the brilliant orange of a tree in autumn, instead of standing back to get the whole tree in your frame, try getting in nice and close and snapping a single glowing leaf against the blue sky or the green of the grass behind. Trust us, your viewer’s mind’s eye will fill in the rest of the tree for you.
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