Photography Composition: Thinking Beyond the Rules

this episode is sponsored by squarespace whether you need a domain website or online store make your next move with squarespace [Music] a lot of you been asking me to do a video on composition but in all honesty i've kind of been avoiding it because there's so much out there already covering things like the rule of thirds and golden ratios and leading lines and subframing that i felt that because it's been covered ad nauseum in so many videos i wouldn't really be adding to the conversation by covering it yet again so i thought that instead of doing another one of those videos where we just list the rules of composition and i'm effectively just giving you a fish by getting you to pick a couple of rules to follow i thought i'd try and teach you how to fish to get you to think about what composition is how we arrange those elements and to transcend those rules over time as you learn to trust your own intuition obviously when we talk about composition we're talking about where we place the different elements within our frames how we space them apart in a way that's pleasing and maybe how we arrange things so that we can tell a better visual story but i think before we do that it's useful to take a moment and talk about how human beings take in visual information scientists have done studies where they've strapped special goggles onto test subjects and got them to sit in front of photographs so they can work out how do human beings take in images these special goggles track eye movement as human beings so they could see in their test subjects what visual path they took through the image as they were taking it in and they could also generate heat maps with the information they collected to show where human beings spent the most time looking in any given image and they found that we're drawn to four things in particular the brightest element in any given frame the most saturated color in any photograph the area of highest contrast or difference and then lastly any human faces so why is that important well if we know that human beings are drawn to bright things saturated things contrasty things and human faces we can have those as elements in our mind when we're composing our shots those are our subjects those could be potential distractions as well so we're working out with those elements how to arrange them and we're trying to anticipate the visual path our viewer will take through the image when we present it to them let's look at a couple of examples this is an image i took on the island of gozo a few years ago during an easter parade through the streets and the subject of this image is obviously this little boy and his face and expression so automatically human beings are going to find this face because we're drawn to uh interesting faces and images but also you've got different things which are also contributing to helping us find that subject quickly and spend our time focusing on him the one is that his robe is definitely the brightest thing in the image so we're going to be drawn towards that and the other is this dark cross against that white robe is probably the area of highest contrast in the image so all those things are conspiring meaning that no matter where we look at this image or start looking at this image we're very quickly going to find this subject and obviously he was having this little moment where he was kind of looking up at the light in the sky it was a sort of religious ceremony so all these things sort of came together to make quite a nice little moment in an image these guys are an important part of the context but they weren't the subject for me he was so if one of these faces was brighter that would have been an issue for me i needed all our focus to get drawn into this kid in the center i remember being slightly worried about this wall that it might be too bright and steel focus but thankfully it was an off-white wall and this area the image had more light on it anyway so we were drawn in but if this was a pure white wall with too much white on it too much light on it and it was stealing focus away i probably would have burned this down a little bit in post to make sure that we were still focusing where i wanted you to focus this is an obvious one where i'm using the light to separate out my subjects in the frame and make sure you're looking where i want you to look and there's a lot of negative space in this one all this area i don't really care about and i'm deliberately throwing this off balance this doesn't really follow any traditional rule of composition i'm i'm really pushing everything into this bottom left corner but i like the negative space it creates almost abstracting this uh this pair who are having a conversation over drinks in a lot of negative space another things that are helping me is you're going to look at this bright red it's the most saturated color in the image plus the faces you're going to be drawn to those uh probably these pants here probably the brightest thing in the image so everything is drawing your eye to the scene here you might start to look around and notice bookshelves in the background and then you'll start to follow the patterns of lights along but you'll always be brought back around to that subject because the human eye will be drawn to faces and light and saturated colors this was an interesting one because i spotted this gentleman coming down the road and he was walking through the scene like this so i got a little bit ahead of him and i took a series of burst shots as he moved through trying to get his face in the light and i did actually achieve that on this shot here but as he passed through i also got this shot where his face was in darkness and i liked it more when i look back at it i like the fact that his hair being caught in the light here kind of mirrored the shapes uh in the background that the trees are cast the shadows the trees are casting on the siding and i like the fact that his face is just a silhouette and i only notice afterwards i'll be honest this wasn't part of my initial composition it was when i looked at the shot later that there's also a face hidden in here as well that kind of mirrors the face of the subject so it creates quite an interesting composition and contrast and balance i was quite worried in this case about how bright this siding was because i know our human propensity is going to be to look a lot in this area because it's the brightest part of the image but i was banking on the fact that this bit of light that the contrast between these two is really high so that's going to draw us back and the facial recognition our desire to find faces and patterns is going to draw us towards these and keep your attention framed in the part of the image that i wanted you to be looking once we've understood what sort of elements draw our human eye naturally it's then a case of arranging them within space inside our frame and traditionally when we think about composition we're usually talking about kind of x y space within our flat frame but i think we also need to think about z space even though when we're taking in images we're usually doing it from a flat two-dimensional piece of paper or a flat digital screen as human beings we're able to interpolate the depth that was present for the person taking the photograph on that day and so that's another element we need to play with depth to our shots that zed space and thinking about placing our elements not just in x y space within our frame but also three-dimensional space from foreground to mid-ground to background and what that will add to our compositions this is an image i took in lisbon at the beginning of last year and i think in this case you've got kind of four layers you've got this is your first layer and i would include this couple as well this is your sort of extreme foreground layer then maybe you've got kind of an in-between layer here where you're sort of looking at the subjects i would call that kind of your sort of near mid-ground and then you've got your further mid-ground where you've got these two pillars with birds sitting on top one on each which is quite a nice little detail and i would say that's a sort of further mid-ground and they're being drawn out because of that nice highlight it's probably the brightest part of the image of the sides of those poles and then the very background you've got here you've got this sort of boat which is center composed in the middle so i would imagine most people when they look at this image will probably start on the cheek of this lady in the foreground because there's a face and a nice highlight they're going to move through start to look through some of the background come around look at this couple then they're going to notice the poles in that uh far mid ground and then they're going to finally wind up at the at the boat in the middle and then take in the whole shot and see how balanced it is at the end but by predicting the path we're going to take through those i can anticipate how viewers will take in this image and what sort of experience they'll have moving from foreground to background so in this image we're just looking at light and shadow and faces because it's obviously black and white with no color you're going to start by looking at this lady's face i would imagine it's the first thing you're going to pick up this is our subject and i would put this gent here as well on that kind of foreground subject but you'll start with her she's got this very bright white shirt which is going to bring us in and this beret so you'll look around with her you'll come over and check out who he is then you'll start to move to the mid-ground this lady here in the highlights you'll take her in second i would imagine and then you'll start to look around at the background and the background in this is less important to me i didn't want it to be too distracting which is why i left so much of this stuff in negative space but having this ceiling which is in covent garden this kind of glass ceiling is quite an interesting thing just to give a sense of space and place so i would imagine most viewers would start by taking in this lady looking at the companion moving through looking at the mid-ground here and then working their way to work out where these people actually are in the world and the last thing to think about which doesn't get talked about as much in composition is the frame that we choose to put our image in because the shape of our frame the dimensions of our frame can also communicate things to our viewers for example a one by one square aspect ratio might help us focus in on a single subject but maybe using a three by two aspect ratio something slightly longer helps us create more space to our shot i have a friend who insists on using four by five aspect ratios as frames for all his images because he says it gives a classical feel to his images and that's the thing aspect ratios and the frames that we choose to present our images to the world are very subjective and different to every photographer and we use them for different reasons but it's important to think about it when we think about composition so those are the elements we have to play with when we're composing our photographs those things that the human eye are drawn to the brightest thing the most saturated color the area of highest contrast human faces thinking in zed space from foreground to mid ground to background and then thinking about the shape of the frame we want to use and after that it's just a case of where do we place those elements within that x y space within our frame i know at this point it's really tempting just to find that one neat compositional rule that we can follow most of the time and it stops us having to think things through as much but i think we do ourselves a disservice if we do that too rigidly and we might get ourselves stuck i think it's more important to learn to trust our photographic intuition that once we know what the elements are we can stand in front of any given scene and intuitively work out how to place those elements so that they're well spaced and balanced and tell the story that we want to tell so does that mean those traditional compositional rules are useless not at all i still use them from time to time myself i can round a corner in a street and find a scene for example and i'm trying to work out a composition but on that day in that moment my intuition is failing me i can't really work it out that's when i'll go to something like the rule of thirds i'll start placing elements and subjects on those thirds until a composition starts to reveal itself but the point is that rule isn't the starting point it's a fallback option for when my own intuition fails me for the sake of the beginners amongst you if you want to start with a compositional rule the rule of thirds is really simple and it basically says if you have any horizontal vertical elements in your shots try placing them on a third line and if you have a point of interest where you want people to take a look or focus more on your image try placing that point of interest on one of the four intersections of those third lines but there's no magical one-size-fits-all compositional theory that we can use in every situation we have to learn as photographers to trust our gut on our best days we'll be shooting more intuitively we'll be working out how to arrange those elements and we won't need the rules as much and we'll learn to even bend and break the rules to arrive at more interesting shots i think that's how the best photographers end up composing their images after years and years of experiences they use their intuition more when they're framing those shots they're thinking about where are my subjects where are the things that i want my viewer to look at how are they spaced and arranged from each other and how is my viewer going to take this image in what visual path are they going to take and how does that add to the story that i want to tell and this is where the compositional rules can trip us up or trap us if we follow them too slavishly because perhaps for example i want to create a sense of unease in someone who looks at a particular image of mine and i have two subjects in that image and any compositional rule will tell me well they need to be a certain distance apart to create some balance but i want imbalance i want them close together i want you to feel unsafe or uneasy looking at it and i want a lot of negative space and mystery the rules won't let me do that but my intuition will allow me to create that more creative image so it's important to make the space to play and try arranging things in crazy ways and see what sort of response elicits from you and don't listen to the people who are going to yell the rules at you this breaks the rules of thirds or it doesn't fit the golden ratio or there's no leading lines or one i hear all the time online you should never send to compose subjects in your shots i often center compose things because in the moment it just feels like the right sort of shot to take so i take it and i won't let any rule bully me into not being allowed to take it because at the end of the day photography is still creativity before it's science if you're starting out there's nothing wrong with having a few of those compositional rules in your back pocket to pull out on days when you're struggling to work out how to put a frame together i still use them from time to time but the trick is that as you develop as a photographer to lean more on your intuition when you're putting your frames together and working out how to space things because remember the rules were made to help you you weren't made to obey the rules slavishly you're in charge i'll tell you one practical thing that's really helped me to get better at composing my shots and that's to use a wider focal length than i'm comfortable with so a few years ago you'll know i picked up the little rico gr cameras to walk around and shoot with on the street but the ricoh gr is a 28 mil equivalent lens which is much wider than i usually like to shoot i'm more of a 35 to 50 mil kind of guy however using that 28mm has been a really good exercise for me because there's no way to hide compositionally 28 mil is quite wide and it's going to include a lot of subjects and you have to work out where to place them all i can't just close the focal length down and pick out a subject i need to wrangle all these different elements and the 28 mil on an aps-c sensor is also not going to give you a shallow depth of field so i can hide things in the bokeh everything is in focus so there's a lot to take in and a lot to arrange so if you want a practical challenge so you can develop your composition better then pick a wider focal length than you're used to put away your long focal lengths and your fast primes and your shallow depth of fields and take out something like a 24 or 28 don't use that shallow depth of field keep everything in focus and go out and try and arrange all the elements in any given scene and i promise you you'll learn fast it will be frustrating it certainly was for me i took a load of bad images while i was going through that process but after a bit of time i realized i was getting better and intuitively wrangling all that information into a more pleasing order in my image and that process taught me more about composition than any single rule of composition ever could it taught me to trust my gut and be more patient with myself and to take my time and be more deliberate and to feel it out in the moment if i'm standing there taking in a wider scene i would just slowly move around playing with the lines or the patterns or the light or shape or shadow until things just felt like they kind of snapped into place and that would be a gut feel rather than adhering to a specific rule and usually if i round a corner of a street and i find that there's there's definitely a shot here that's where i'll start arranging those background elements starting with that background in terms of zed space what the shadow's doing what are the shapes doing and then waiting in that shot i've got that composed correctly and then i'm watching to see who or what moves through that space through my mid ground or my foreground thinking about those things that draw attention the brightest thing the most saturated color the highest area of contrast or any human face and then waiting to see which areas they hit where it feels right to take that shot it doesn't feel right where they're standing here but it does here for some reason so i'm composing background waiting for mid-ground and foreground to move into place always thinking about those things that draw our human eye i think ultimately composition should help us to tell a better story with our images and i use that phrase really lightly i don't mean it literally because i know lots of different sorts of photography don't lend themselves to literal storytelling but what i mean is when anyone approaches your image and looks at it for the first time you're going to take them on a visual stroll through the elements that you place in the frame and you have to make sure as the photographer that you're being deliberate about the route that you're walking their eye through your shot and asking ourselves those good questions like the aspect ratio we use as our frame and what it communicates where we're placing things from foreground to background to top left bottom right and everything in between where we're putting light and dark and contrast and color and faces in our shots those are our 12 notes on the piano keyboard and just like those 12 notes in music with those limited elements we can create an endless variety of stories start with the rules by all means but if you're willing to go further to take the time to think about arranging those elements as creatively as you can and trusting your gut you stand a good chance of coming up with a way of composing your images that's uniquely you thanks again to squarespace for sponsoring this episode if you need a new website or a domain they're a fantastic option i've used them myself personally as my website of choice for almost the last decade when i present my images online i like them to be surrounded by a very simple and minimalist design that doesn't distract from the images themselves which is why squarespace was the right choice for me because i have a whole host of beautifully designed templates put together by top designers where the design is really held back and pushes your images to the front so when people visit your site they don't spend time looking at all the cool design elements they're really clean and they're in the background and your images are what people spend time with start your free trial today at squarespace.com and go to squarespace.com forward slash sean tucker to get 10 of your first purchase [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Sean Tucker

Views: 94,426

Keywords: street photography, photography, composition, human eye, psychology of photography, exposure, creating interest, composing, rule of thirds, rules of composition, foreground to background, layers in photography, how to compose your images, how to composition, wider focal length, 28mm, ricoh gr3

Id: upxY8U1XPB0

Length: 19min 13sec (1153 seconds)

Published: Sat May 08 2021