More....photography composition rules

In this post, I will share more about the general photography composition rules. FIVE more rules will be described such as background, viewpoint, depth, framing and cropping.

Choosing a right BACKGROUND is important for portrait photography. Look for simple background such as brick wall, green grasses, bright or dark background etc. If you do not have the luxury to choose the background, then increase the distance between your subject and the background, use lens with longer focal length (at least 50mm) and open up the aperture to the maximum (smallest f-value), this will create blur background. Thus, your subject will stand out.

Dark background, 50 mm, f1.8

Think from where you will shoot before photographing your subject. Try viewpoints that are less common, be different. If the VIEWPOINT is common such as at eye level, then your photo will look common too. Try from high above, down at ground, from the side, from far away, from very close and so on.

Viewpoint down at ground, foreground - dry leaves, middle ground - the building
and background - cloud

Create DEPTH by including object at foreground, middle ground and background. These elements will make the eyes evaluating the distance between the foreground to the background, which will give the sense of depth. This is important for landscape photography. Without these three elements, your photo will look flat.

The surrounding is full with natural FRAMES, such as holes, archways and trees. Put your subject within this frames, this will isolate your subject from other elements near to the main subject. With these natural frames, our eyes will naturally focus to the main subject of interest.

Ruins of St Andrew Cathedral, framing method

CROPPING is usually required if the subject is relatively small compared to the size of photo or your photo is very busy with secondary subjects. By cropping tight around the main subject, the background interruption will be minimised, BUT you will also loss some of the pixels. Good luck!

Comments

Converting Bedside Table to a Portable Wash-Stand (IKEA Hack)

What to do if a ready made furniture is not able to fit in the space that is available? Your choice will be either build a customised furniture or hacking a furniture for a different purpose. Hacking a furniture will cut almost 70% of the work required to build a customised furniture from zero. Here, I share a step-by-step process on one of my DIY weekend projects converting bedside table to portable wash-stand. What will be required for this project? Tools (e.g. saw, metal ruler, hand drill), sand paper and brushes for wood work, base furniture to be hacked, water-resistant paint and metal knob. STEP 1. Get some ideas on the design and materials by visiting several furniture galleries/shops. For example here, the idea was from an IKEA wash basin base cabinet, Lillangen. The material mainly particleboard, which might not be that suitable for Malaysian humidity and bathroom practice. For that reason, I choose solid wood material the project. The dimension of the IKEA cab

The Town of Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom

The time available for me to explore the Town of Reading was limited, as my worktrip was quite packed with formal meetings at the University of Reading and vis it to hospital and community establishments. Reading is located on the west of Heathrow Airport for about 26 miles and Greater London for about 42 miles. The Town Hall of Reading with grey and red bricks Lets go to the main landmarks of Reading. The first one is Reading Town Hall. The building was built between1786 and 1897. Currently, the town hall is used as Reading Museum and a large concert hall. Actually, the frontage was newly built with grey and red bricks, and terracota ornaments. The new facelift included the clock tower. Sadly however, the building suffered severe air raid in 1943. The latest refurbishement was completed in the year of 2000. On the southside of the town hall, you can see a dominant tower like structure that is the St Laurence’s Church. The Reading Town Hall, a vi

Before you snap here and there, know your lens first

Oppsss! I think I should introduce the lens, camera parts and photographic terms first before going to image composition. This time, I just want to share and introduce the terms and parts of lens. It is applicable for whatever lenses especially for the DSLR camera. The different will only be the terminology or abbreviation used by the specific manufacturer. Lenses can be categorized to many types such at wide angle, standard, prime and zoom. Each type of lenses have specific features and is used for specific purpose. For example, wide angle lenses are usually used for scenery/landscape and narrow space photography. Each lens will be marked with zooming distance (look at the numbers which ended with mm; see photo bellow). This number will gives you some ideas about the width of view when a photo is captured. A number less that 35mm can be considered as wide angle, the 50 - 55mm as normal lens, and the 75 mm and above as zoom lens. Wide angle lens will highlight the perspective of an

Travel, Interior Decoration, Photography and Food

Search This Blog