{"id":110016,"date":"2018-08-15T14:23:03","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T21:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=110016"},"modified":"2018-08-15T14:23:42","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T21:23:42","slug":"20-simple-and-elegant-henri-cartier-bresson-composition-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/15\/20-simple-and-elegant-henri-cartier-bresson-composition-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"20 Simple and Elegant Henri Cartier-Bresson Composition Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

My favorite compositions of Henri Cartier-Bresson:<\/p>\n

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1. Surreal selfies<\/h2>\n

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Find funny mirrors and fun house distortions and shoot your selfie!<\/p>\n

2. Streams of light<\/h2>\n

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Find a nice diagonal or thunderbolt shaped stream of light, and wait for someone to enter!<\/p>\n

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3. Three dimensionality<\/h2>\n

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Make more three dimensional pictures by having things in the foreground, middle ground, and background, and lots of hand gestures and people looking in different directions!<\/p>\n

4. Black space and triangles<\/h2>\n

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Shoot in places with bright light, and shoot with – 1 or – 2 exposure compensation. Extra bonus points if you can make a triangle composition!<\/p>\n

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5. Blur<\/h2>\n

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Find an interesting background or pattern, and shoot a person blurred and obscured. This will make your photo look more surreal.<\/p>\n

6. Step back, show a sense of scale<\/h2>\n

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Make your subjects super small, and show the urban landscape.<\/p>\n

7. Minimalism<\/h2>\n

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Just one subject from a distance, clean silhouette, and epic landscape.<\/p>\n

8. Arabesque composition<\/h2>\n

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Arabesque is a squiggly line, which adds more elegance and movement to your pictures.<\/p>\n

A secret is to space out your subjects:<\/p>\n

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Or go to big gatherings of people. Make an arabesque by shooting people on different levels or planes:<\/p>\n

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9. Fill the frame with people<\/h2>\n

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10. Diagonal composition, with subjects about to exit the frame.<\/h2>\n

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11. Elegant minimalism without people<\/h2>\n

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Just include birds and buildings.<\/p>\n

12. Shoot on top of a mountain looking down<\/h2>\n

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13. Wait for subjects to enter your frame<\/h2>\n

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Find a nice composition in the background and be patient until your subjects enter your frame!<\/p>\n

14. Curve composition<\/h2>\n

Repetition of ballerinas on top, and orchestra on bottom:<\/p>\n

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15. Repeating arm gestures (diagonals)<\/h2>\n

Also fill the frame:<\/p>\n

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16. Off center composition and leading lines<\/h2>\n

Look for steps, architecture that points to your subjects:<\/p>\n

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17. Hand gestures and triangles<\/h2>\n

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18. Shadows and light<\/h2>\n

Keep it minimal:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

19. Diagonal composition with lots of subjects spaced out<\/h2>\n

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20. Dynamic tension of subjects looking opposite directions<\/h2>\n

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Learn more about Henri Cartier-Bresson here ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite compositions of Henri Cartier-Bresson:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/20180815_120538.jpg?fit=604%2C402&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110020,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110016\/revisions\/110020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}