The ONLY 4 RULES of COMPOSITION that you need to know

a big thanks to squarespace for sponsoring this week's video morning everybody fantastic to see you all again so in this video i'm going to talk all about four rules when i say rules i don't really like the word rules um i don't know why i used it in the title um but i couldn't think of anything better to say but it's not about things like uh intersection of the thirds or the golden triangles or whatever it's it's more about sort of methodologies or things that i always follow that i think my images have i've been looking at my images recently and there's just four things that just stand out to me so i thought it'd be really useful that if i sort of shared what they are the things that i do look for in photos but i probably didn't purposely think about it um in the past um but i definitely look for these four things when i'm trying to shoot and i think this video just ties it all together nicely and also what's really important to say is that this is about composition it's the four things in composition i think are super important obviously there's light and the subjects and there's timing which those those three things are so important in photography but this is all about composition making sure your composition is just nailed basically so the first one let's get into them is balance and and how important balance is and i i'll show you actually on on here so we've got an image here from the lake district and i think this is a good example of why balance is important because really this isn't very balanced we've got you know quite a defined number of things on the left hand side so we've got this ridge line here we've got this grass here and then we've got this sort of mountain range here i know we've got a mountain range there as well but these things are all on this side of the image and then on this side of the image there's not a lot so there's not a lot of balance to that and balance isn't so much about symmetry it's it's more about the visual weight of the elements and how important that is and i want to show you some images that are balanced and some are imbalanced um or unbalanced and then hopefully that will give you a better idea okay so let's have a look at an image that's balanced this is a woodland scene from close where i live in the summer and you can see that this is quite nicely balanced we've got these two trees here um and you know that the eye just sort of goes straight into the middle of it there's balancing that the tree is at the bottom of the frame and then the top part of the frame is a similar type of luminosity and the colours are all balanced as well so it's a very balanced image it's nice on the eye and that sort of thing works really well for woodland photography so yep so that's that's a good example this is another example of something where we've got two things of equal visual weight that are opposing um a diagonal so this works quite well because those two things balance each other out you don't have to have things like that that balanced it and this image actually would look equally well if we just got rid of the rock so if the rock just disappeared now you could see that yep this image is is still okay because it's got asymmetry in it and a lot of balance comes from the use of symmetry asymmetry it's why when you start photography that a lake looks fantastic because it's well it's well balanced whereas this image here is an image that works but isn't symmetrical and i think the reason this works is because we've got some repeating elements so these islands and your eye and your brain sort of work together to understand what's going on here and i also think that this sort of slight strip of um sound going all the way across as well connects the things together so i think this works quite well as an image just on its own so balance is something you've just got to think about in terms of what looks right it's often whether an image looks right or looks wrong um is balance again this image works well because we've got this really strong cloud on the left hand side and this mountain and those two strong visual elements are opposing diagonals and they work really well together to balance the image the other thing you can do to balance an image is just use colours and what i always like to do is have diagonals going through images that might be a diagonal like we've got in this image we've got a diagonal of the actual clouds and then the mountains and in this image got a diagonal of a waterfall coming coming through and then either side of that diagonal if you have similar things and they don't have to be similar shapes they can be similar colours and in this case here you can see that we've got some bracken that's you know reddish color there and then we've got these berries on this row and tree which is reddish and those two things sort of complement each other and help to balance the image there's also similar tones at the top and bottom of the image which helped to balance it and then finally whilst we're talking about balance then we've got an image like this which was this stunning location in um iceland which um i'll link a video here if you've not seen this video when i took this because i got quite excited but what makes it is is is is this this little curve here this curve of the lake here and these two things just complement each other and help to balance the image if this was all clouded i think it'd work as well because this side of the image would have been um too too heavy the second one is flow and flow is all about how you look through an image so it's how your eye sort of looks around an image so the first example of flow is this shot that i took here and this is um this amazing heather and i think i've talked about this before actually but we've got this nice flow going all the way through to the rock there's also flow down in here because this dark color pulls your eye down into the lighter color because the lighter color is more dominant we've also got some lines here that are also leading your eye in to the image so that all helps you to move your eye around the image um and yeah it makes the image look fantastic another good example of flow is where you have an image like this where there are elements that are similar within the scene so i've got a tree here i've got some trees in the background i've got a tree here and a tree here and a top tip is if you're trying to do something like this then try and make sure that they're connected by diagonal lines and this makes quite a strong flow around the image um and then we've also got some lines going in here and here and here and here as well so this all helps you to read the image a little bit better for the viewer to spend longer on the image which is what you're trying to do and flow is is so so important for instance this image here i feel like the flow isn't great on it it's a nice image it looks looks quite nice but you spend a little bit of time on this side of the image and then to this side of the image then to this side of the image but you don't you don't know where your eye is meant to go in it um there's no you know definite destination for your eye and although you don't always have to have a destination for your eye i feel like in a scene like this it just becomes a little bit more complicated and what you want to try and do in woodland is is simplify it um and there's no really leading lines in this particular image um and again the same for this one here so we've got this beautiful water at the bottom we've got this really nice mountain at the top and then we've got this really sort of flat bit of water in the middle and it just doesn't connect very well together what i should have done in this image is i should have just got a little bit lower and reduced that mid ground there and that would really improve the composition because i feel like the flow in this image is great at the bottom it's all okay at the top but it doesn't connect the two things together very well and that's really really important the other thing i perhaps could have done is just move to the side and that would have created a stronger diagonal in the image whereas this one um i feel like there's a really good this is one of my favorite images of all time but i feel like there's a really nice flow in this image so if we just go and have it have a look at this image you can see that we've got some nice triangles we've got a triangle there a triangle there and then we've got repeating triangles all over the place down here and what happens is that your eye connects those things together and because this image is just the same tonality it's the same sort of color tones as well then these things just connect really well together and and your eye just can go around around the image um and and then there's also a really nice strong diagonal through it all as well so you can see here that this diagonal sort of connects to these um as well so diagonals triangles really help to flow your eye around the image any leading lines that's why an s curve works a path anything like that can massively help your composition okay onto something a little bit more complicated in terms of flow and this is actually one of my favorite shots and and i feel like the reason this works is there's a waterfall flowing through so that helps but i've i've created something that's quite simple in terms of the color palette within this so because there's quite a range of different textures i feel like if you had a lot of colors in it as well it wouldn't work so well but i've got these really strong it's almost like monochrome apart from these greens in it so those greens then help again i've got a triangle here and they help to connect things together in the image and that helps to flow the eye around the image which means that you stay longer on the image which means that you more notice more things on the image flow is so important in an image and it's really really important to think when you're taking your image just think about that think about how the eye is going to flow around the obvious things are paths and s-curves but there's lots of other things that you can do as well so it's well worth trying out on to the third thing the third thing that i think is really important in in composition and this i don't really know what to call it really probably the dynamism of a shot maybe the energy of a shot the tension that a shot creates but it's something that just makes you think whoa that you know that's got something about it energy is probably the best best word really now you can do that really easily if you shoot a shot like this which is or a shot like this where it's got water in it because obviously water's got some energy and it creates a sense of movement and means that the image is is going to stand out a little bit more um so water is great and a great way of creating energy or dynamism in a shot like like these two images but how do you do it if you don't have moving water so if you're not shooting seascapes or you're not shooting waterfalls is there any other way that you can create a more dynamic or more energetic image that's going to um you know hit the hit the viewer there and make them think twice about about the shot well there is actually and if we look at this shot here you can see this was taken at the same time that i took that shot of the rock and i feel that if you use things like clouds or anything that's got movement in it so anything that we perceive as humans will be moving and then you arrange them in the image in a way that um is almost looks whoa you must have you must have just captured that just at the right moment in time then that image then has a little bit of energy it has a little bit of something so this is such a good example because this tree is caught between these um clouds and i did i watched these clouds go past i saw them form a gap and then i thought oh i could put the tree in there but then when you look at this image it's got a little bit of energy it's got something just a little bit more than just a an image of a tree or wall and some clouds if the clouds have just been randomly um laid out there it wouldn't have quite that sort of energy about it and it's the same with this image here this is an image i took a long time ago where this cloud came down i've talked about it so much in my videos but what hit me the other day is the reason it works is it's got a bit of energy cloud moves um just like water and if something moves like that and you can capture it and capture that moment in time then you're going to create energy and dynamism and you know something about your your photo so that is really good and there's other ways you can do that as well you know this image here has got these grasses that are moving and if you just get the shutter speed right and you get those grasses moving then that can create a lot of energy in an image as well think about anything that moves and how you can incorporate that into your landscape shot and how um you know people can think ah that's special you've timed that well you know things like sunsets work well i think because because of that anything where there's a little bit of thought going into the timing this is another good example of something that's got energy this is a composite of two shots and one with a long exposure one with a shorter exposure for the clouds but i think that creates a bit of energy it creates a bit of tension between the clouds at the top and this smooth water at the bottom the smooth water has got this calm feeling whereas the clouds have got a little bit more of an angry feeling they're almost like you know having that sort of heavy presence on this island and again that's telling a story and it's creating a little bit of energy you can create tension as well which creates energy in in a shot and this is a good example you know this church is right on the edge of the frame and by being right on the edge of the frame it creates a little bit of tension the mountains chopped off and because i've chopped the mountain off um it's created a little bit of tension so this image just has got a little bit more energy than an image where that would just be of the church in the middle and the mountain in the background and you know you can do all sorts of things like this just think about your image and how you can create energy in your image and you'll be surprised at just how much it'll elevate your composition okay before i get into the fourth point um and something that's so important uh i'd love it if if you have enjoyed this this video so far just to click that like button it means a massive amount to me um i just want to have your energy in this video so just click the like button if you've liked it and if you're not subscribed then consider subscribe subscribing okay the fourth point is all about depth in an image and you can create depth in lots of different ways obviously the obvious one is fog in a woodland creates depth because your eye perceives darker luminosity is closer to the camera and lighter luminosity is further away than from a camera because that's what you're used to in nature if something's a long long way away like a mountain then it's going to look lighter than a mountain that's closer and similar within everything so as soon as you do that with an image you're going to create a bit of depth and this image that i took last year is one of my favorite you've seen it so many times before enchanted oaks and what's good about it is that i've aligned everything up correctly but it's also got some depth and that depth creates um you know something that's really powerful you can also create depth just by having things closer to the camera um and if you've got human objects in there or humans then that can help to create depth so for instance in this shot here then this little boathouse is you know what size that boathouse is because you know the size a boat would go in it so you know that that's a little bit of the distance away and then we've got these branches in in the foreground so that's creating a little bit of depth to the image and that just creates something just a little bit more magical because what we're doing is photographers is we're taking the 3d environment and turn it into two ds um 2ds is it 2d 2d we're turning it into 2d and and what we've got to try and do is convey that depth to the viewer you can also do that like in this image with colors so warmer tones tend to jump out to the viewer cooler tones tend to fall back to the viewer so here what i've done is i've just got this lone oak tree right in the middle of the image here and it's got these warm tones and these warm tones jump out at you and that's creating a bit of depth yeah i think the clouds in the background also help to convey that depth as well you can also use textures and and changes and shades to convey depth so here i've got layers within the image um again there's warm tones of jumping forward a little bit but because i've got this layering to the image and because then i've got similar objects in the image these rocks that are getting smaller as you go back then again that's conveying depth there's a great photographer in the uk called tom watkinson um i'll i'll link his instagram below but he did a series of images that i spotted you today which i really loved and i felt that they conveyed depth really well um so i used a wide angle lens and you can see this is one of them and by doing that he's got the foreground and and these lines just coming in so he's got a bit of flow to his image but then he's got this rock in the background that you know is quite a big rock but it's quite a long way away and it's also the drop in luminosity across the shop from the fog also helps to create that depth so there's a few things going on here he's got that um changing perspective using a wide-angle lens he's got the rock which is a you know big object further away and and not as bright and and these things are just massively massively helping to convey depth in the image his images are really amazing he's got lots of others from around the uk so go and check out his his instagram here's another one so i hope those four things balance flow dynamism slash energy and depth have really helped go and go and try using them i'm sure they'll start to elevate your your compositions in photography obviously you've got to find a good subject obviously you've got to have some good light um but if you try and use those then then i'm sure you'll start to see better photos before you go i'd like to thank squarespace who are the sponsor of this week's video squarespace i'll make it super super easy for you to build your own website now i have talked about them before a few times um but if you are looking to go away from something like instagram or or complement instagram with a website and you want to build a portfolio then do consider using squarespace it makes it super easy it controls all the sizes it makes sure that everything works on an ipad or an iphone or your desktop you have to worry about all that technical stuff and they've got 24 7 support as well so go and check out squarespace at the links here and you get 10 off if you use offer code nigel or go to forward slash nigel so i hope you've enjoyed the video give it a thumbs up if you have and until next sunday bye [Music] you

Channel: Nigel Danson

Views: 65,686

Keywords: photography, composition, photography composition, landscape photography, composition tips, photography tips, nigel danson, nigel danson photography

Id: 20CpdyXxf-s

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 14 2021