Tom Clark - Digital Photography Composition For Dummies

TTL creates a simple shooting experience in which you don't have to worry about setting the intensity of your flash, but it only works when the camera and the flash are made by the same company. Don't try to mount a Nikon flash on a Canon body and expect the two to sync with TTL features.

Tripods are essential for taking images with slow shutter speeds and for leveling your camera to ensure a proper perspective in nature and architecture photography. (Chapter 8 tells you more about perspective.) I bring a tripod on every shoot whether I plan to use it or not. It's nice to have it when you need it.

You can find tripods in different weights and sizes. The most important factor to consider when purchasing a tripod is what you plan to use it for. Consider the following:

If you are a travel or nature photographer and go on long hikes with your gear, you want a tripod that's lightweight and compact.

If you shoot architecture, you want a tripod that has a great deal of extension in the legs; architecture photographers commonly shoot from high angles for exterior shots. For this type of photography, a tripod that reaches at least 10 feet is essential (and so is bringing a step stool along with it).

A studio photographer would be best suited with a heavy tripod that's as large and sturdy as possible.

Look at the different tripods available and determine what qualities would best suit you and your style of photography.

Figure 3–7 shows a scene with a still subject that I photographed using a very slow shutter speed of 1 second. I took the image on the left while the camera was fixed to a tripod. The result is a sharp image. I held the camera in my hands to snap the image on the right. As you can see, the natural movement of my hands caused the scene to become blurry with motion blur.

50mm, / sec. (on a tripod), f/5.8, 100 50mm, 1 sec. (hand-held), f/5.8, 100

Figure 3–7:Placing your camera on a tripod enables you to use slow shutter speeds and maintain sharpness in a still scene.

Photographic composition involves many V layers and ideas, and in this part of the book you find out about the elements that go into any composition. I introduce you to the fundamentals that lead you toward amazing photographs, and I also tell you about the rules of composition that decades of photographic talent have honed. (You do yourself a service in learning them, but don't think you can't break them.) Finally, I round out the part with a helpful chapter on using color in your compositions.

In This Chapter

Determining what your points of interest are in a scene

Understanding lines in composition

Differentiating between shape and form

Working with texture to increase scale and depth

Exploring the patterns you can include in your compositions

Photographic composition is a combination of everything in an image. W Depending on how you compose a photograph, you may represent each separate element in your frame as what it literally is or as the basic lines, shapes, forms, and textures it includes. For instance, you can include in your composition a sofa that's obviously viewed as a sofa, or you can break it down to its shapes and lines or the colors and textures it contains.

In order to purposefully create compositions that have a clear message and that are visually impressive and influential, you need to understand the basic elements of design and what each is capable of. Understanding basic design helps you make compositional decisions that improve the way your photography looks and reads.

As a starting point, consider a stick figure: A stick figure with its arms angled upward seems happier than a stick figure with its arms angled downward. Even without any literal expressions or details, the message of joy is conveyed through lines and shapes. If a stick figure was standing at the beginning of two lines that gradually got closer until they finally connected at a point, you could get the idea that the stick figure was standing on a road and had a distance to travel. The lines and shapes in your scene create the foundation of your message. The relationships they have with each other make up the basis of your composition.

In this chapter, I examine the basic elements of design, such as points, lines, shapes, textures, and patterns. I show you how to use them in your photographic compositions to maximize the aesthetic and descriptive value of your images.

The most basic design element is known as & point, which is any spot or area where something exists in a photograph. A simple way to look at it is as a point of interest. Your eyes are drawn to the points in a photograph.

For instance, a white frame with a single red dot is a composition with one point, the red dot. If the frame had a second red dot, it too would represent a point in the composition. If you then added two intersecting lines in the frame, the area in which they intersected would represent a point.

Your subject can exist at a point if it's fairly small in your frame, but a large subject would most likely have multiple points of interest. In a close-up of a person's face, for example, her eyes, nose, and mouth are all points of interest.

The rule of thirds, which I discuss in Chapter 5, helps you determine where to position the key points of interest in your frame to give them the most visual impact. Figure 4–1 illustrates how the rule of thirds highlights the four strongest points in your frame, which are depicted as the larger dots. These stronger points are called primary points. The smaller dots represent the supporting elements, called secondary points.

Figure 4–1:A graph highlighting the four strongest points and the secondary points of interest in a frame.

Some photographers refer to the

four main points in a composition

as the golden points. Viewers

naturally consider anything on these points important, so use those points

wisely. Sometimes filling one or more of your strongest points with negative

space (blank space that doesn't contain any point of interest) strengthens the

other points compositionally.

Each element in Figure 4–2 has a particular size and position in the frame, which determines its importance and role in the message. Check out the graphed version of the image to see how each element relates to the others.

50mm, 1/250 sec, f/l 1,100

Figure 4–2:A photographic composition with various elements and a breakdown of how important each point is and its role in the composition.

Because Americans read from left to right, an American audience would most likely be drawn to the points on the left side of your frame. Even so, you determine the strongest point in your image by how you position the elements in your frame. In Chapter 1,1 tell you that the area with the most contrast will most likely be the first place a viewer looks in your frame. So, if you place that high-contrast area on one of your golden points, it most likely will be the strongest point in your image.

Anything can occupy a golden or secondary point and act as a point of interest. For example, consider the following:

I•»" Intersecting lines create a point at the area where they cross. v• Lines that meet at a point and don't intersect can create a vanishing point, like railroad tracks going off into the horizon.