Photographic composition: the living flesh of photography

Composition in Latin means “connection,” meaning the connection of all the parts, all the elements of an image, into something whole. This short formula makes so much sense that it’s easy to miss the important parts. First of all you should understand what parts of a picture are. It is not only all the plot details – people, tables and trees – but also empty spaces, unfilled parts of the frame, sky, background and so on. For example, recall Carlson’s famous work “The Very Lonely Rooster”: on it, the whole untouched sheet of paper was the main part of the composition, which gave the cock nestled in a corner the most important quality – loneliness.

Even in studio photography one can apply such seemingly inappropriate composition constructions as oblique cross. Here its effect is emphasized by framing the shot upside down. Canon 5D, 100/2.8 Macro, 1/125 c, f/14, ISO 100.

Photo by Egor Narizhnyy

Background

Composition had appeared much earlier than photography. It’s an inherent property of any artwork, whether it’s flat or three-dimensional if there’s a work of art, it’s bound to have a composition. The closest thing to photographic composition, of course, is pictorial composition: many generations of artists have been meditating on it for centuries. It is funny to note that in the short century and a half of photography while it has been mass art for much less time there have been far more books on photocomposition than there have been on painting composition in the past millennia. This is not because it is simpler in painting, but because it is more serious. In artistic circles, it is not customary to buy a pair of brushes and five tubes of paint, read a brief instruction on creativity and immediately proceed to the masterpieces. And where there’s a long learning curve, you don’t have to put a lot of things in writing, especially if it’s useless to memorize them in theory. Instead you have to learn to feel them in your own skin and understand why one and the same technique works somewhere and where it ruins everything.

Parts and Whole

Composition in Latin means “union”, meaning the joining into something whole of all the parts, all the elements of a shot. There is so much meaning in this brief formula that it is very easy to miss the important sides of the case. First, you have to understand what the parts of the picture are. Not only all the details that are significant to the subject, like people, tables and trees, but also the empty spaces, the empty frame pieces, the sky, the background, etc. For example, recall Carlson’s famous work “The Very Lonely Rooster”: on it the entire untouched sheet of paper was the main part of the composition which gave the lonely rooster, nestled in a corner, the most important quality.

Moreover, even the element of composition might be something that does not exist in the frame at all, but which the viewer can guess: for instance, if you shoot a triangle with the vertex cut off, the point where the vertex would be located would become an important compositional element of the frame even though in the physical reality of the picture it would be just an empty spot .

Not only the figure of the man is a fully formed composition element, but also a complexly shaped piece of background between the frame and the figure and another piece between his leg and the chair he is sitting on. The composition is democratic: both the dark figure and the light sections of the background around it are full participants in the common cause. All those puzzle pieces, both really present and “absent” as empty background or imaginary, should ideally be beautiful by themselves and in addition they should be combined with each other so that in their connection some new quality would emerge and form the composition, which is the united work.

Connections can be very different: based on similarity, like two parallel lines, or, on the contrary, on contrast and opposition, like a yellow leaf and a white snowdrift, but they must be. The elements of the frame may reach out to each other or push away and argue, but they have to interact somehow. A human thinks mostly in terms of oppositions, like light and dark, big and small, quiet and active, so counterpoint or contrast relations between elements of the frame are more common than unproblematic uniformity.

If some element can be removed or cut without noticeable detriment to the frame, it means it is superfluous in the frame, its connections with other elements are weak or absent, and it is better to do without it. And if you find that the empty part of the frame is too big, but when you try to cut it you notice that the frame is getting crowded, and the sight of, say, the heroine of the image is starting to rest against the frame – leave the empty part as it is, it is a necessary part of the composition. By the way, one of the participants in the composition, and of the most important, can be named in advance for any photograph is the frame. It is the basis of compositional design and should always be kept in mind.

“Harmony” and the laws of composition

I remember Mikhail Zoshchenko, being interested in the theme of love in the world literature, was struck by the abundance of meaningless definitions which have been given to this feeling at different times, such as “love is like a divine combination of heavenly sounds”. Very similar is the case with composition. In every other text about it you are bound to come across interpretations where “harmony”, “creativity”, “balance” and “equilibrium” are explained through each other, and these beautiful notions can be swapped in any order, from right to left or through one, without much change in meaning. So let’s try to explain the essence of the laws of composition through something more lucid.

Since the composition is a set of relations between different parts of the frame, and the parts are quite independent it’s unlikely that in a typical portrait the eyelashes will be a composition element, the smallest element would be the eye , we can liken them to relations between people: someone likes someone, someone the opposite. Certainly, certain laws exist in this field, as well as the whole science, but by experience we know that the laws are laws, but it is not easy to predict how the relations between people will develop in practice.

It’s the same with composition: you should certainly learn its laws, but you should also understand that knowing them doesn’t guarantee anything in and of itself. A young man who has decided to win the girl’s sympathy would do well to master the rules of etiquette, but it is strange to think that after that the matter is in the bag. One of the best pieces of advice on composition is to learn its laws and then try to forget them completely, so that they are applied unconsciously rather than calculatedly, i.e. e. not as a reason, but as a method.

In addition, the laws of composition are of a rather general nature. If they indicate the point where the element of the picture should be placed, then in practice there can be considerable tolerances and the point can turn into a fairly vast area. It is impossible to make them act unequivocally like a hammer. It has come to the point that a large group of researchers in St. Petersburg, studying the many years of psychological tests on the perception of the laws of composition, came to the conclusion that these laws do not exist, or rather, that the statistical error and individual differences are too great. I wonder what the researchers would come up with if they decided to study the stories of romantic relationships in this way?

Geometric basis of the frame

Compositional relationships are complex, but for the convenience of describing them can be divided into linear and tonal the latter include and color accents . Linear links exist not only in the form of visible lines in the frame formed by the outlines of objects, but also in the form of “force lines” – imaginary segments connecting the most important points of the picture. The French artist Charles Bouleau wrote the book “Geometric Secrets of Painting”, where he analyzed a lot of classical paintings, identifying the compositional lines in them. And although the construction of these lines is clearly subjective, they allow you to understand a lot about composition, because the perception of painting is subjective by definition.

Composition building begins with the placement of the main subject center in the frame, and at that moment all compositional solutions are divided into symmetrical and asymmetrical ones. Symmetrical, in which the main object is placed in the center of the frame or at least on one of the main axes, is considered static, but perhaps the word “completed” would be more appropriate. But in practice it could be absolutely different: for example, a great number of portraits, both large-planar and full-length are placed in the center of the frame, and they could not always be called static. More precisely, the placement of the main subject in the center means that it does not need any other objects in the frame, that it is self-sufficient: just the right solution for a portrait. In general the practice of photographic composition resists clear distinctions: the placement of the main object in the lower part of the frame can produce a depressing feeling or, on the contrary, it can denote room for upward movement.

Asymmetrical composition frame necessarily requires something more than the main object, at least the empty space that can be interpreted as a habitat or set the scale for example, a person who fills the entire frame looks monumental, and surrounded by a huge empty space – on the contrary, lonely, as a rooster Carlson . In the latter case the “empty” part of the frame should be designed so that it looks like a meaningful space, like a figure. This could be achieved with tonal transitions or texture.

The weight and balance

Introduction of the second, third and so on into the frame. d. important element in a successful compositional solution creates meaningful connections between them. We know that we should frame an odd number of important elements: they look better in the picture. Compositional connections define the relationship between the parts of the image, which could be attraction, subordination or conflict. At the same time the connections between the objects are defined first of all by their “weightiness”, by their importance in the composition. The more “weighty” subject subordinates the less significant one. It’s important that “weightiness” is in turn determined by several characteristics of the object: its size, tonal difference from surroundings, shape and general “activity” which depends on sharpness of outlines, brightness of color, etc. If there are two objects in the frame about which you cannot tell at a glance which of them is more “weighty” for example, one is bigger but looser, the other is smaller but brighter , there is a tense struggle for the first place, which is likely to be the main perception of the photograph.

The “weightiness” of a composition element is its main characteristic, which determines the tension and dynamics of the composition as a whole. But it is hardly possible to give a strict definition and especially to derive a formula for calculating such “weightiness” because it depends on a huge number of factors, different for every shot. At a glance: it could be a difference from a number of similar objects for example, all dressed up and one naked, or all blurred in the blur and one shot clearly , or a difference from the surrounding background – in general, something that sets the subject apart. The “weightiness” also depends very much on the position of the object in the frame, and the farther it is from the center, the more “weighty” it is, and as a result even a small but active t. e. an object in the corner, standing out sharply from its surroundings, can counterbalance a rather large object in the central part. Some photographers even compared arranging a composition with placing various objects on a copper dish from a drummer’s arsenal, the very one that is non-rigidly fastened to a vertical pin through a hole in the center. The closer you put the object to the edge of the plate, the more it tilts it in its direction, and the photographer’s job is to keep the plate from tipping over.

Tonal Composition

Tone composition is inseparably connected with line composition and fulfills the same functions: it builds up a hierarchy of relations between the elements of the image, only it perceives not lines but bright and dark, colored or black and white spots as compositional “material. More accurately, the lines and tonal transitions form “masses” a term from pictorial composition within the image, which interact with each other. “Power lines” that draw the direction of connections between “masses” are felt unmistakably by a trained viewer.

Combinations of different colors in the frame are part of the tonal compositional connections. The principles of interaction are the same: a small bright element on a contrasting background can counterbalance or, in terms of hierarchy, perform on an equal footing with a rather large element of less garish coloring. Confrontation of light and dark is complemented by combinations of contrasting colors, bringing the number of possible options of compositional solution to infinity.

The rules themselves

Having enjoyed the theory, you can look at popular practical composition tips from its heights, with a little idea of the mechanisms of compositional connections. There are not many of them, and their undoubted advantage is their clearly empirical origin, because theory here grows from the analysis of instinctively made successful compositions. One of the masters of Soviet photojournalism said that he knew only two compositional techniques: “object in the center” and “dispersion in the corners”. It doesn’t sound as refined as many of the translated texts, but you can feel the wealth of experience behind it, especially considering that the “acceleration” in his work turned out to be interesting.

So:

Fill the frame with your subject option: get closer . It should be understood as an instruction not to “inconsiderately allow anything superfluous into the frame, like household goods in the background.

Don’t put your subject in the center of the shot. This advice is not universal, to say the least: there are a lot of wonderful photos with central compositional solution. But in human terms it’s easy to understand, especially when you have reviewed a couple thousand amateur photos where the subject center is exactly the same as the geographic center.

Use the “rule of thirds”. Dividing the frame into three equal parts horizontally and vertically, you get four intersection points of these lines, the main compositional centers where it is best to place the most important elements of the frame. This rule has a twin more ancient origin – the rule of the golden ratio, in which lines should not be drawn through a third of the sides of the frame, and in 3/8 of the edge, so that between the lines was 2/8. A simple calculation shows that the point sought by the golden ratio rule is only 1/24 of the side length closer to the center of the frame. e. in the vast majority of cases, an object placed in one of them will automatically be placed in the other one. The rule of thirds is easier to state, which is probably why it’s more popular.

Separate the object from the background, a requirement of paramount importance in the world of hierarchies to which the composition belongs. This can be achieved by many technical tricks: by applying a shallow depth of field and blurring the background or by providing a noticeable tonal color, texture difference between the object and the background say, by placing a light object against a dark background and vice versa .

Use diagonal framing. The diagonal is the most powerful and dynamic line possible in a rectangle. Positioning important composition elements on it adds power and dynamics to the whole shot. Besides, if there is an oblique line in the frame, it would be more natural to “take” it to the corner – the composition of the frame will be better.

The diagonal is just a hand away from a more subtle rule: line up compositional important points on the tops of simple geometrical figures and inscribe these figures in the frame rectangle. The most obvious, simple and powerful figures in terms of psychological impact are the triangle and the cross. Not necessarily existing lines in the frame should be lined up in these figures although it can be so , the main thing – that they add up “power lines” that connect the main compositional nodes. Both the triangle and the cross can be placed straight ahead – in this case we have a pyramidal composition for the triangle or an inverted pyramid and a horizontal-vertical combination for the cross, or oblique – with the latter making the entire composition extremely dynamic. The centuries-tested version of an oblique triangle, where one of its vertices lies in the corner of the frame and the other two lie on opposite sides, dividing them in meaningful and interesting proportions. An oblique cross is the time-honored variant when its rays do not rest on the frame corners like the Andrey cross, but enter the frame frame frame somewhere near the corners, forming a kind of spiral.

Watch for proportionality of the figures involved in the composition and the empty pieces of the background. Very often it turns out that the ideal ratio of their width or length is the golden ratio – about 1.62. Advocates of “pure photography” strive to observe all proportions when taking pictures for those who have not yet mastered the ideal nothing prevents them from using Photoshop, including the magic cropping tool. When handled with care, it can simply transform a photograph!

If you are not pursuing artistic aims, it is better to make sure that verticals and horizontals are present in the frame. A carelessly tilted horizon, for example, can completely spoil the impression of an overall interesting photo. In this case, too, it’s worth trying to fix things in “Photoshop.

You are free to choose the aspect ratio. The classic 2:3 narrow film format is good, but the even more classic 4:5 or 3:4 is just as good. Try it – maybe you’ll like it. And the square in practice, however, is often preferable to stretch it vertically, by 5-10 percent can seriously help the compositional search.

Frame the main element of the frame. This device accentuates its significance and is capable of giving it additional meanings. You can make a frame from all kinds of real twigs, window frames, etc. p., You can also use an empty space, but it is important to take responsibility for its size and proportions.

After a beginner learns not to include unnecessary details in the frame, the next mistake may await him – too dense cropping of the frame. Don’t suffocate your subject, give it as much air as it needs in the frame. If the person in the frame looking to the left, leave enough room on the left for a glance.

Repetition and rhythm

Repetitive compositional elements give the frame a very special quality, setting its own rhythm in the picture. This is a very powerful tool of influence, but unfortunately, much hackneyed in recent decades, especially with the heyday of photostock agencies aimed at selling standard marketing cards of guaranteed impact. Enterprising photographic craftsmen have put the production of photographs subject to rhythm on such a strong stream that it’s time to ask for an intermission, because nowadays almost any card built according to these rules is immediately perceived as professional in the worst sense of the word.

By the way, since we are speaking about the organization of groups of similar objects in the frame, it is worth mentioning that a group of more than 6-8 objects is no longer perceived as several individual objects and turns into one pile, t. e. Into one sloppy object. This too should be taken into account when composing a shot.

Bottom line

In fact, there are a lot of compositional rules and techniques, just like in any other business. The above are just the beginning. Choose the ones that are closest and most interesting to you and improve. It is not necessary to master all the theoretical peaks and depths of knowledge. Well-trained composition sense and the possession of several strong methods of frame building are more than enough for productive work.

And one more time: an artist, including a photographer, is ideally the master of his own work. The compositional rules are subject to him, not him he is free to make them play as he sees fit, to undo them if they do not suit his sense of the world at the moment, and to invent new ones.

Have a nice shooting!

“Composition is the strongest way of seeing.”

Edward Weston

It has already been written and rewritten about composition in photography. Photographers are offered thick books about psychological mechanisms of perception, where it is impossible to find the first page without a dictionary of foreign words, and simple texts such as “do not put the object in the center of the picture”… But the theme, to put it mildly, is not closed and is unlikely to close in the foreseeable future. If only because the composition is the photo itself

While the image is almost perfectly symmetrical, it cannot be called static. One of the interesting points here is that the important composition part of the frame is moved outside the frame: we involuntarily look into the place where the eyes should be, and the frame appears to be somewhat inactive. Canon 400D, Tamron 17-50/2.8, 1/60 sec, f/11, ISO 100.

Photo by Yegor Narizhny

At first glance the left part of the frame looks a bit empty, but when you try to cut it off, the frame actively resists, as the tip of the man soaring in the air touches the edge of the frame, showing how much the air is needed here. The basis of composition is an asymmetrical pyramid. Canon 5D Mark II, 24-105/4L, 1/400 s, f/20, ISO 320.

Photo by Yegor Narizhnyy

An example of using several compositional tricks at the same time: firstly, framing the vegetation is perfect for that secondly, symmetry, which makes the subject particularly static and serene thirdly, disregarding the “rule of thirds”, because the horizon line with the mountains divides the frame approximately in the middle. Symmetry is emphasized by a pair of almost symmetrically placed lanterns, and serenity is emphasized by the laconic black-and-white color scheme. Canon 5D, 24-105/4L, 1/200 c, f/8, ISO 200, exposure compensation -1/3.

Photo by Igor Narizhny

Lines in the frame leading to the main subject and drawing extra attention to it is a classical technique in fashion and genre photography. The color combinations also work for the frame: the overall red, white, and black colors in the model’s clothes and the mural on the wall. It has nothing to do with composition, but it is always interesting to combine real and drawn subjects in photography. Canon 5D, 50/1.8, 1/60 sec, f/7.1, ISO 320.

Photo by Yegor Narizhny

Here the composition is defined by the dialogue between the diagonal ray of light and the blank textured wall, with a dark and compact figure in the bottom corner. Brittleness and equilibrium, a lively and viscous flow of time in which nothing changes – these feelings are created primarily by compositional methods. Canon 400D, Tamron 17-50/2.8, 1/80s, f/8, ISO 800.

Photo by Yegor Narizhny

Symmetry somehow adds up on its own when the main feeling of the subject is calmness and grandeur. It is not without reason that many of the ceremonial and official photos are symmetrical, like all ceremonial structures. Here the balance of the scene is intensified by the fact that about half of it is a reflection of the other half. Canon 5D, 24-105/4L, 1/500 c, f/7.1, ISO 320, exposure correction -1/3.

Photo by Igor Narizhnyy

The world of reflections, illusions and recollections leads us to a flat frontal composition with obviously conventional elements, and neither the painted camel nor the silhouette can boast of being particularly realistic. The composition is based on the evident repetition and superposition of two triangles, one in the foreground, the other in the background. Canon 400D, Tamron 17-50/2.8, 1/60 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100.

Photo by Yegor Narizhny

The composition equally includes both what is and what is not. A fuzzy rectangle in a frame, occupying a quarter of the frame, is not a symbol of the future and maiden dreams? It dominates the frame with its hardness, suggesting some associative meaning, and the figure cut off in the frame almost in the center adds some symbolism. Canon 400D, Tamron 17-50/2.8, 1/30 sec, f/3.5, ISO 800.

Photo by Yegor Narizhny

Though it is not too conspicuous, the frame is constructed on a combination of two rhythms – a pedestrian “zebra” on asphalt and black-and-white stripes resembling piano keys, from the characters’ clothes. Heads turned out to be superfluous in this case. Canon 5D, 24-105/4L, 1/200 c, f/7.1, ISO 160.

Photo by Yegor Narizhny

As with most good photographs, you can talk about the composition for a long time, even though everything was instantly perceived at the moment of taking the picture. The circle in the frame has an almost magical effect, resonating with the squares of buildings in the background and the boy’s expressive gaze. Canon 400D, Tamron 17-50/2.8, 1/400 s, f/10, ISO 200.

Photo by Egor Narizhnyy

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An example of how composition can create a photographic scene out of nothing. Hardly anybody will guess what made the base of the picture, it was the shell of a tiny souvenir turtle made of mother-of-pearl. The juxtaposition of hard verticals, heavy horizontal layers, and shaky color lines creates a self-contained pattern. Panasonic Lumix GF2, Leica 45/2.8 Makro lens, 1/25c, f/2.8, ISO 400.

Photo by Igor Narizhnyy

The chaotic combination of most diverse subjects can sometimes create a mood sufficient for making a shot. Here I have a pyramid scheme for composition, but I had no thoughts about it. Panasonic Lumix GF2, 14/2.5, 1/125 s, f/4.5, ISO 100.

Photo by Igor Narizhny