Every photographer needs to know about composition techniques in photography. Why do you need to know about it? Can’t you just go out to the street and take a picture as you wish? In photography, composition is needed not just to make your picture looks good but also to arrange some elements in a scene to make it look better within the frame. To get great pictures, you can try the following techniques below that we prepared only for you.
Photography Composition Techniques You Need to Know
To take an interesting photo, you not only need interesting subjects but also the knowledge of how to include those subjects in your photograph. In short, you also need to master compositional technique. Here are some photography composition tips that you can apply:
1. Centred Composition
The first basic composition technique that you might aware of is centered composition. You need to find the symmetry within the frame. It can be symmetrical horizontally or vertically. The most usual picture that using this composition is the picture of stairs or lake that can give a mirror reflection.
2. Rule of Thirds
Have you ever heard about the rule of thirds? This technique is the most popular and easiest one you can try. The rule of thirds means you have to find the important elements within the 9 equal rectangles in a frame. These 9 equal rectangles are divided into 3 across and 3 down lines that can be found in your camera frame.
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The idea of this photography composition technique is to put the main subject of your photograph where two lines intersect. You might be tempted to put the subject in the middle of the photograph. However, placing the subject somewhere other than the middle will often create a nice and strong composition.
3. Frame Within the Frame
Have you ever tried to take a picture using the window or door as your frame? This technique is called with frame within the frame. It gives your picture a sense of depth. You can try to find any frame from any kind of object and it doesn’t have to be entirely surrounding the scene. With this interesting composition technique, you can bring the viewer’s eye easily toward the focus of your photograph.
To explore this composition technique even further, you can widen you imagination and utilize natural frames, such as rock formation or anything that is shaped naturally, to bring the viewer’s attention and focus toward the main subject of your photograph.
4. Golden Ration
The golden ratio is a very complex technique but once you get a feel with it, you will get a great picture. For the first, you need to know the basic rule of thirds. Then, you draw a spiral that looks like a snail’s shell. That spiral can give you guidance on how the scene should flow. This spiral is also called Fibonacci Spiral and you can try to find the formula for this technique.
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5. Rule of Space
When you try to take a picture of something moving, like a boat on the river, you need to understand the rule of space. This technique can make whoever sees your picture get into your realm of imagination. You have to capture the boat also space where is it going. With that kind of capture, people can imagine that the boat is going to ‘that’ way. If the boat is going the right way, you can put the boat on the very left of your frame so it can give more space in the middle to the right. That’s how you make a picture ‘moves’ in people’s minds.
6. Leading Lines
If you want audience to focus on a certain focal point or main subject of your photograph, you can always provide some kind of imaginary road called leading lines to lead you audience’s attention. For example, you can utilize horizontal lines created by floor or paving stones to create leading lines toward the main subject.
7. Leaving Negative Space
Sometimes, all you need on your photograph is only the focal point or the main subject. It can be interesting to fill you photography composition with many things like using a frame or other composition tool.
To apply this photography composition technique, you can simply take a picture and leave negative space as a background, like wall, blue sky, and others. With this photo composition, your audience can better focus on the main subject while giving the focal point some kind of breathing space.
8. Golden Triangles
This photography composition technique is quite similar with the rule of thirds. However, instead of dividing the frame with grid, you divide the the frame by using diagonal line from one end to another and then adding two vertical lines from the other corner, creating intersection, to form triangles.
This photography composition technique can be used to introduced what photographers called ‘dynamic tension’. What does it mean? Well, in the world of composition techniques, vertical and horizontal lines symbolized stability. Diagonal line, however, implies instability. The diagonal line created by the triangle can be used to introduced the sense of instability in your photography composition.
9. Diagonal and Triangle
As we have discussed before, diagonals and triangles imply and create the sense of instability in the photography composition. Finding and creating diagonals and triangles do not always have to start with the rule of thirds. You can always find natural objects that are triangle-shaped or find a way to compose several objects and create imaginary diagonal line. This way, you can create interesting photos without bothering with the rule of thirds.
10. Balance Element
To create a visually appealing photograph, you need to understand several photography composition rules, one of which is rule of thirds. While rule of thirds serves as a good start to train your photographer’s eye, the application of rule of thirds sometimes leaves lots of negative space in the photograph, especially if you put the subject in the middle.
Handling lots of negative space is quite simple. You just need to fill it with other objects. One good technique to introduce or include other objects in your photograph is by using what is called secondary subject. By using another subject, you put some ‘weight’ on the negative space created by the rule of thirds. Just make sure to not make the other subject is not more prominent than your main.
Those are some photography composition techniques that can improve your photography skills. Feel free to reach us if you have any requests for the picture’s editing to save your time. Dropicts as a professional photo editing services will help you in photo editing.
