tip 12: Composition

Composition and lighting are an important aspect of photography, though I can never decide what is more important. Too much light and our shot becomes too bright and suffers from harsh shadows, too little and we have to resort to long exposures (though this is not necessarily a bad thing, in terms of landscape photography). Take this shot for example. Without the wonderful lighting it would simply be a guy holding a guitar on a beach. Without the use of a flash, the shot would suffer from harsh shadows.

However this tutorial is not going to be about lighting, mostly because I only use natural light, but rather, composition.

Wikipedia defines composition as the plan, placement or arrangement of elements or ingredients in an art work. It contributes to a response from the viewer; the work of art is said to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye if the elements within the work are arranged in a balanced compositional way in other words, arranging the elements in your photo to look the most pleasing to the viewer.

Whilst many people argue that composition rules are unnecessary because rules are made to be broken yadayadayada. These people do not know how to take photos.

As an example of successful composition, I will use images from the talented Peter Bowers.

Firstly, click here for a brief explanation of the rule of thirds.

Next is an example of one of Peter's pictures overlayed with a grid (centre) and minus the boat (right). Note how empty the image seems without the boat. The boat is an excellent use of foreground interest, made better with the angle its in and the positioning.



If the boat had been dead centre, it would have split the image into two, and lost much of the reflection. At the angle its at going from one corner to the centre, it leads the viewers eye into he centre of the picture, as does the shape of the clouds.

Leading lines are are useful composition element also. They tend to lead the viewers eye along them, and ideally they should lead into the picture to where the rest of the image is, as below.



both of these shots use a leading line as its main compositional element, however the left one is probably a more successful image because the viewpoint is lower, the wall or whatever it is takes up more of the photo and thus is able to draw more of our attention. Also the skyline is larger, allowing us to focus on it after. The right is better in terms of colour, however, and also has its merits. I've included the shot below as an example of excellent use of natural leading lines.



Notice how the log at the bottom points in the same direction as the clouds, this shot is also a great example of symmetry. The reflection matches whats above the horizon, and the snow covered log points towards it. Overall its a wonderfully balanced shot.

Another example of leading lines is in my own picture below. Note how the leading lines converge into a vanishing point in the distance. The car adds foreground interest. It also has geometrical elements.



Curved lines are another compositional element used. From wikipedia In photography, curved lines can give gradated shadows when paired with soft-directional lighting, which usually results in a very harmonious line structure within the image.. Its easier to find curved lines in the natural environment then it is is straight lines. Below is an example of a curved line used well in the image.



In the right example, notice how each section contains something different in the image, and particularly how the curving lines lead to the centre of the image, and onto the sunset.

notice how in all the above pictures (except the first) the horizon is not mid centre. In landscape photography, a mid centre horizon rarely works unless its dividing the image into two halves, to create symmetry, such as in the image below.


Finally when it comes to placing objects in your scene, try to avoid placing it dead centre, as many tourists do (also called the bulleye effect). Placing your subject (be it person, foreground rock, boat) to the left or to the right will make it much more pleasing to the viewer. Below is a good example of perfect composition.



Note how the sun lies off centre to the right, the lines from the shadows lead to the sun (the focal interest) and the horizon lies in the top third of the picture.

There are still several other elements that could be mentioned, however this post is long enough already, and these are the main ones to remember. Essentially rule of thirds and composition elements are there to guide the photographer. There are many things to photograph if you are out photographing landscapes, and its easy to get bogged down with just shooting anything. If you take the time to consider where the best spots are then your images will be more satisfactory, in the end.

Thanks again to Peter Bower! check out his pictures here. One thing I failed to mention is that he predominantly shoots in evening light. This is known as "the golden hour", the half hour before sunset and the half hour after, where the light is most beautiful. Learn to use light to your advantage as well as composition!

For an interesting link explaining the golden section (I just learnt about it yesterday) click here.