Tom Clark - Digital Photography Composition For Dummies

Both photos: 50mm, WO sec, f/2.2,400

Figure 15-6:Two angles of the same food item.

You can combine these and other compositional elements to achieve the look you want. The photo in Figure 15-7, for example, uses many different elements. A shallow depth of field eliminates the details from outside the window in the background, and the low angle makes the dessert look like a piece of art rather than just something you eat. The close perspective also reveals the dessert's texture. The plant in the background gives a sense of environment, but it isn't distracting because of the shallow depth of field. The glass of juice in the background acts as a complimentary color to the garnish on top of the dessert, and the backlighting highlights the texture and shapes of the dessert while separating it from the background.

50mm, 1/80 sec, #2.5,400

Figure 15-7:Multiple compositional elements combine to create one message.

Like photography, architecture is an art form that uses composition to create works that are functional and aesthetically pleasing. The spaces created by architects and interior designers affect your mood while you're in them. They manipulate the way you feel, and it happens in such a subtle way that you likely won't notice it. Consider the outside of a building as the cover of a book and the interior spaces as the content inside that book. Each building is a story, and an architectural photographer's job is to document that story in the best way possible.

When photographing a building, think about the architect who designed it and why she did things the way she did. And when shooting interiors for a hotel, restaurant, condo, or home, pay attention to how the decor works with the architecture to provide a complete mood in your image. All the design work in architectural and interior photography has already been done and is laid out in front of you. You just have to know it when you see it and be able to capture it appropriately on your digital sensor.

Often you have to tweak the layout of a room's design to accommodate for the specific camera angle you've chosen. Some furniture may have to be moved to better reveal details that are behind it, and some angles and placements of furniture may have to be cheated a bit in order to better suit your composition. Look through the viewfinder while your assistant moves the elements based on your instructions. If you're shooting in a privately owned property, be respectful of the owner's concerns about moving furniture, and involve them in the creative process by showing them the results of your styling on the camera's display screen.

I provide you with some guidance on photographing both exteriors and interiors in the following sections. The images used in this section are courtesy of Craig Denis, a photographer and friend of mine who specializes in architectural and interior photography.

In Chapter 12,1 explain how you can raise and lower the lens element of a tilt-shift lens to correct distortion caused by high and low perspectives. These lenses are great for shooting architecture and interiors, but if you don't have one, you can correct distortion with your photo-editing software. I discuss postproduction techniques in Chapter 18.

To get great compositions of building exteriors, you first need to determine the best time of day to photograph. After all, sometimes the lighting is the most interesting part about the exterior of a building. Because your subject is large and can't be moved or repositioned, you have to shoot when the sun is in the appropriate area for your desired lighting. Take some time before your shoot to figure this out. Go to the location in the morning and in the afternoon to see which looks best. Also, check to see whether the building looks best at night.

If you're going to photograph a building at night, start shooting just after the sun goes down and continue shooting until it gets dark. Sooner or later, you'll hit the specific time during which the ambient light that's fading from the day and the building's lights expose properly together. Think of the ambient light as your fill light and the building's lights as your key light. (Check out Chapter 10 for more on these types of light.) Because you can't control the ambient light, you have to be in the right place at the right time, and the best method to make sure you get the shot is to continually take test shots as the light fades.

After determining your lighting, you're ready to focus on the composition. Composing your shot is all about perspective (refer to Chapter 8). Buildings provide interesting lines and shapes, so their immediate surroundings can and should work to enhance those lines and shapes. In many cases, you want to photograph buildings from a high angle. You can do so by bringing a ladder or by shooting from the roof or a high window in a neighboring building. High angles provide a sense of how the building fits into its surroundings and show its landscape, which also is a part of the overall story. A low angle most likely emphasizes how tall a structure is, but it doesn't provide the optimum amount of detail.

Balance, as a compositional quality, ensures that your viewers can comfortably view the entire frame of your composition without getting stuck in one area that's weighted too heavily. By paying attention to the shape of the building and how it fits into a rectangular frame, you can determine how much space to leave around the building and which surrounding elements to include in your composition. Make sure that the building you're shooting is large enough in the frame that viewers know it's the subject. However, also leave enough space around its edges so that viewers have some supporting elements to explore or negative space to guide their eyes around the edge of the subject. Chapter 12 provides more information on balance and space.

Figure 15-8 shows the exterior of a house in which the structure is framed by the trees surrounding it. This composition helps keep your eyes in the frame and coming back to the house itself. The columns are highlighted by the use of exterior lights and the soft light available at dusk.

Composing an interior image usually is about giving a sense of space. With these types of images, typically you shoot with a slightly higher angle, which enables you to see over the elements of the room and creates depth and space. Balance also is important. Balance is created when the various elements in a room are positioned in your frame to lead a viewer through the space without getting stuck in one area that's overweighted (containing a dominant amount of detail in comparison to the other areas in the frame). The key is to spread the love.

24mm, 1/4sec.,f/8, 100

Figure 15-8:An exterior image of a house and its landscape.

Here are three excellent ways to add to the sense of space in an interior photo:

Create an interesting foreground, and then lead your viewers through the space in a way that gives them a sense of the architecture and the design.The shapes created by the space itself — furniture, rugs, fixtures, and accessories — can be used to achieve this interesting foreground, or starting point. Then you can lead the viewer's eye into the frame to an area that counters the starting point. Finally, have that area lead to another point of interest and create a flow, which ultimately leads back to the starting point.

In Figure 15-9, Craig Denis used the shape of the bar to lead viewers into the image to an area where guests can lounge. Just above that part of the composition is a shape on the ceiling that mimics that of the bar. This brings your eyes over to the right side of the frame where you can get an idea of the texture of the chairs that are shown on the left side of the frame. In the end, your eyes are brought back to the bar and ideally it leads you back into the image again.