Composition in photography

[lurch]

Woops! Sorry I accused your cousin of having an Adam's apple, Lonnie. /Hangs head in shame/

[grannysdc]

The purpose of the photo dictates how to crop.

I would crop/print it as a straight up tourist shot. "Here we are in WhateverLand, look how happy we are!"

Sort of like a "grin and grip" news shot.

[One4UAll]

Using friends, family, even yourself as a model in a photo is nothing new, btw. Probably 50 yrs ago, I read a photo magazine article on how to avoid the "this is us, here" kind of photos. You know, people standing in front of some monument, famous landscape, or other famous site, grinning, straight-on into the camera. You can include them as an element in the composition while retaining their identity. But, don't have them looking at the camera!

A couple of more examples I can give, w/o attachments: When my wife & I were at a view of the Eiffel Tower, I put my camera on a tripod with self-timer & positioned my wife & I over to one side, as two people looking on the scene. More recently, I was in Greece & was asked by a mother & daughter to take a picture of them with a temple in the distance. I did so, but later thought, "Why couldn't I have placed one on the left, the other on the right, with the one on the right pointing to the temple in between, with the two of them looking at each other in profile in a kind of conversation?" There's all kinds of things you can do with this. Provided that you think of it at the time, which I didn't do in this second example. Don't be satisfied with one shot. If you have time, try 2 or 3 in addition to the head-on shot, unless your "models" get bored easily.

[LonK]

I can see most are making great progress in understanding many of the basic elements of effective composition. It most certainly has helped me to review the guidelines.

One of the most challenging tasks any photographer faces is converting a real 3D scene onto a 2D medium while trying to retain the dimensionality. To do this, he must employ some visual "trickery", if you will.

If I may, let me suggest a few depth enhancing techniques that can dramatically improve some compositions:

1. Color contrast. Warm colors project. Cool colors recede. Another way to punctuate a subject is to accentuate its warmer colors and contrast that against cooler, less saturated colors in the surrounding (supporting) setting.

2. Luminosity contrast. Bright objects project. Dark objects recede. A brighter subject placed against a darker background inherently exacts more attention.

3. Focus contrast. A subject in sharp focus draws attention. By controlling the depth of field in a photo, an image's center of interest can be ensured.

While these psychotropic compositional aspects are also best attended to in camera, they can be convincingly imitated to a certain extent in post to enhance a composition.

[crazyfly1]

Here's one I thought would be fun. I find portraits pretty easy, focus on the eye. Landscapes can be pretty straight forward too. This is one of a type that always baffles me.
I'll post my attempt after this one. Have fun.

[crazyfly1]

That first one is out of camera btw. This one is color fixed and sharpened.

[Janet Petty]

crazyfly1, I'm waiting most anxiously for comments on your hoar frost. Macro work is something I'm nuts about. All I really have to say is KISS, which you have done in the second shot. You might want to take out the distracting bit of frost at the bottom left.

Janet

[crazyfly1]

Originally Posted by Janet Petty

crazyfly1, I'm waiting most anxiously for comments on your hoar frost. Macro work is something I'm nuts about. All I really have to say is KISS, which you have done in the second shot. You might want to take out the distracting bit of frost at the bottom left.

Janet

That's how you spell that! I never knew there was a term for it untill my sis told me a after I took the shots and sent them to her.
Good suggestion on the lower left.

[palms1]

Lonk thank you for some more great tips, crazyfly i like the frost shot

lots of food for thought, I think i will have to divide my "snapping" into two for a while the usual no thinking ones and the other the thinking ones
(Rome wasn't built in a day )

Palms

[crazyfly1]

hmm, Palms I divide mine into baffeling and not so baffeling. In fact I have some portrait shots ready to post in the critique area that I want suggestions on. Those I put one 3rd over an eye and call it good. Here I have no eye, what to do? So I too am anxious to see how others would go about figuring how to crop and image like this frost.

[LonK]

I never really got interested in macro photography, crazyfly. However, I think your frost photo has a rather strong composition as is. The heavy diagonal is very dynamic and the repetition of the branches provides nice symmetry. The texture is intriguing.

I did take it upon myself to enhance the photo a bit -- a very slight crop, adding a suggestive background to improve the feeling of depth and blending a slight blue tint to emphasize how cold it must have been.

[crazyfly1]

Hi Lonk, I like the backgrond and edit into more blue. I'm not at all familiar with the triangle or theory of the heavy diagonal. That is why I really like this thread. I'll have to do some reading on a couple of the links that have been posted so I can learn more. Right now all I know is the rule of thirds.

So every one knows, I'm not sure what qualifies as a macro, these were shot rather close but not with a macro lens.
These were taken after 3 increadible days of blowing mist in temps just below freezing, in colorado springs.
The first picture was shot at 1/60, f/8, iso100.
Here is a pic to bive some scale and show how really increadible it was. Those Ice crystals in the first picture are actually about an inch or so long.

[Ziaphra]

My try...the road leads my eye...hence the crop.

[crazyfly1]

Ziaphra
Nice crop, that was kind of the same idea I had. Here is the origional out of camera with no edits.

[Ziaphra]

Here we go...lovely photo.