Composition
It is easy to view a photograph and believe you are being
emotionally moved by only the subject matter of the image, and to an extent,
you are. A person can be made to feel
sad by an image of a starving child, or happy and joyful by an image of
children playing and laughing, for example.
But, the composition of the photograph also has a powerful influence on
how it is interpreted.
In simple terms, composition is to do with space in the
camera’s viewfinder. It’s about placing
your subject in the viewfinder in such a way that it tells your story as
effectively as possible.
It is important to know the ‘rule of thirds’. Divide your photograph into 9 squares and
there will be 4 points at where the lines cross. These are the best points for
placing your subject when considering composition. Your image will not look the
same with the subject placed in all 4 crossing-points – you need to look and
decide for yourself, where your subject would be best placed – this is your
focal point. The focal point is where
you want your audience to look first. Of
course, these rules won’t work for every picture, but it’s a good place to
start.
Format is important – decide whether you want your image to
be in a landscape or portrait format.
The name is in the title – traditionally, for shooting portraits, you’d
hold the camera vertically, and for shooting landscapes you’d hold it
horizontally. There are exceptions to
these rules though such as filling the entire frame with a model’s face, adding
some foreground interest and shooting your model in landscape format, or still
life photography.
My advice is to
choose whichever format you think suits your subject best and if in doubt,
experiment!
Colour
You should recognise the importance of changing White Balance to suit the type of
photography you are shooting. Different
light sources produce different coloured light.
Some produce cool blue light while others are much warmer looking. If you are photographing in a studio setting
with tungsten light sources, switch the white balance on your camera to
‘Tungsten’ for the best matched colour tones. If you are shooting a sunset,
change the white balance on your camera to ‘Sunset’ for warmer tones.
White Balance options typically include Incandescent (for shooting interiors/indoor light bulbs), Fluorescent (for strip lights and
similar), Direct Sunlight (for
shooting outdoors in sunlight), and Cloudy
(for shooting outdoors in cloudy conditions).
Exposure also has an effect on the result of the colours in
your photographs. Underexposure produces saturated colours and high contrast,
whereas underexposure produces washed-out colours and less contrast.
When you are preparing for a still life or portrait shoot,
it’s wise to be aware that every colour you introduce will influence the mood
of your image. Experimenting with
backgrounds, lighting and colour combinations is a good way to learn what your
end results will be!
