10 Top Photography Composition Rules

RULE OF THIRDS

lighthouse-rule-of-thirds

  • The rule of thirds is an essential photography technique. it can be applied to any subject to improve the composition and balance of your images.

BALANCING ELEMENTS

out-road-sign

  • Placing your main subject off-center, as with the rule of thirds,  creates a more interesting photo, but it can leave a void in the scene  which can make it feel empty. You should balance the “weight” of your  subject by including another object of lesser importance to fill the  space.

LEADING LINES

winding-mountain-road

  • you can affect the way we view the image, pulling us into the picture, towards the subject, or on a journey “through” the scene. There are many different types of lines and each can be used to enhance our photo

SYMMETRY & PATTERNS

orange-chapel

  • both natural and man-made., They can make for very eye-catching compositions, particularly in situations where they are not expected

VIEWPOINT

man-on-beach

  • Rather than just shooting from eye level, consider photographing from high above, down at ground level, from the side, from the back, from a long way away, from very close up, and so on.

BACKGROUND

violinist

  •  look around for a plain and unobtrusive background and compose your shot so that it doesn’t distract or detract from the subject.

DEPTH

sheep-hills

  • You can create depth in a photo by including objects in the foreground, middle ground and background. Another useful composition technique is overlapping, where you deliberately partially obscure one object with another

FRAMING

chateau-lake-louise

  • isolate the main subject from the outside world. The result is a more focused image which draws your eye naturally to the main point of interest.

CROPPING

hugging-ornaments

  • By cropping tight around the subject you eliminate the background “noise”, ensuring the subject gets the viewer’s undivided attention

EXPERIMENTATION

tree-golden-field

  • If you can find a great picture just take it and then see if you like it later if you don’t then just delete is
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