[Part two of the Photography Fundamentals series, be sure to check out all 10 posts!]
After discovering that photography is really about light and shadow, the next step to producing great images is understanding composition. Really lighting and composition make up 90% of great photography.
Composition: The arrangement of items in your image; subject, background, environment etc.
It’s easy to forget about the position of things in your image. We tend to just assume that our camera is capturing what our eyes see and if the camera sees what our eyes see (and our eyes see a great image) then pressing the button will produce a great image.
FALSE!
The camera does not, in fact, see everything that your eyes see. It only sees a very small percentage through a small piece of glass and crams it all into some format (film or digital sensor).
Think of composition as reorganizing what your eyes see so that the camera can reproduce the image. Do you see a beautiful sunset in a huge sky? Don’t just point and shoot, position your sunset next to a sliver of shadowy horizon to emphasize its vastness.
Remember that the only rule for photography is that there are no rules. If it looks good it is good.
That said, here are a few “rules” to help you with your composition.