{"id":74223,"date":"2017-12-20T05:47:38","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T13:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=74223"},"modified":"2017-12-20T05:47:38","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T13:47:38","slug":"what-is-composition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/20\/what-is-composition\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Composition?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Composition is the art of arranging the visual elements within your frame.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To start in photography, you have a frame, an empty black canvas:<\/p>\n

\"Your
Your frame: an empty black canvas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now imagine yourself looking through a viewfinder, with the white edges as the edges as the viewfinder edges:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re photographing a person \u00e2\u20ac\u201d where do you place them in the frame? In the center?<\/p>\n

\"Center
Center composition of a subject in the frame.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Or do you put them off a little to the right?<\/p>\n

\"Subject
Subject framed on the right of the frame<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Or do you frame your subject on the left?<\/p>\n

\"Subject
Subject on left of the frame<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do you include their entire face, or cut off parts of their face?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Generally, to make more dynamic compositions of a subject, place them according to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Golden rectangle<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d composition \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the intersection of reciprocal diagonal line:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

In composition, if you introduce another character (let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s say our red triangle friend)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d you want to create some SEPARATION between them two, like this:<\/p>\n

\"Separation
Separation of red and circular friends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want your friends to overlap:<\/p>\n

\"Too
Too crowded, avoid these guys from over lapping<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rather, give them room to breathe. See them arranged and composed in different parts of the frame:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

To me, what makes photography fun and challenging is composition.<\/p>\n

We take bits and pieces from reality, and it is our skill as photographers, how we decide to arrange these different elements. The better you can arrange the elements inside your frame, the better compositions you will make. And the better your compositions, the more engaging and powerful your photos.<\/p>\n

Let us show if we introduce (yet another) friend \u00e2\u20ac\u201d our blue lightning bolt (has glasses, just like me). See how the composition is different, based on the arrangement of these guys:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Also, see how by giving them some space, you can arrange them in a triangle composition:<\/p>\n

\"Triangle
Triangle composition of these three guys, shown in pink<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want the frame to be too off-balanced, by putting them all on just the left or the right of the frame:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

So the basic takeaways in composition is this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Composition is how you ARRANGE different shapes, forms, and subjects in your frame. <\/li>\n
  2. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t crowd your subjects or elements in the frame. Avoid overlap, and give them room to breathe. <\/li>\n
  3. Make balanced compositions by placing elements equally throughout the frame. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Learn more fundamentals of composition with this free PDF visualization ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Composition is the art of arranging the visual elements within your frame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":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_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/F2F49910-F979-4BB6-B5EC-6A3082E41FF0.jpeg?fit=4928%2C3264&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74223","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=74223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74244,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74223\/revisions\/74244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}