11 Composition

Composition

The composition is an arrangement of elements on a photograph. The good composition makes an image feel balanced, it creates flow and guides the viewer’s eye through the photo and helps tell a story. You can spend decades studying the rules of composition and sometimes, you can capture an amazing composition intuitively. Either way, you should always be aware of it when deciding where to position your camera related to the object you’re shooting, what angle do you shoot from, what lens do you use. Look at these two images of the same old Big Ben. The first shot looks very plain and the second one is way more balanced and interesting due to good composition.
example of a bad composition example of a good composition
The choice of composition is completely up to you as an artist as long as you’re making that choice cautiously. There are a few so-called rules of composition which you may use as a guideline. We’ll discuss these rules in the next few sections. Next: Rule of Thirds go back