A Better Way To Compose Your Photos

When we first start delving into photography and learning about all the different elements that go into this craft, sooner or later we come across composition. To some people composing photos may come naturally where’s to most including myself composition is not that natural and we need to actively work at it in order to improve our skills. Another aspect of composition we quickly learn is that there are rules such as the rule of thirds, the spiral and I’m sure there are more that I just don’t remember right now. These rules are fantastic to get us going but in some cases they can be limiting and after enough experience, we tend to start wondering is there more to composition other than just placing a subject in the lower third. 

Well in this blog I would like to share with you my approach to composition which is based on colour, light, shadow, detail and negative space. I honestly do feel that if you get your head around this approach, you will really have more comprehensive view of composition within your photography. Finally although I mainly focus on street photographer, this method will carry over to other genres too. 

Elements

Before I explain how this method works, let me cover the typical elements that we would find in a scene we are about to photograph.

Colour 
First of all we have colour. What I mean here is specifically bright and vibrant colours which will catch your attention almost immediately when you look at a scene or an image. It could be a red door, a yellow structure, or a green bus. 

Highlights
As the name suggests these are the brightest areas of your image. This could be a bright midday sky, a sun flair, snow, a lit up part of the street, white washed light grey sky, fog, a very bright subject and the list goes on. Basically if it is bright and catches your attention then it falls under this category. 

Shadows
The total opposite of highlights, these are areas of your image or the scene which are darker, gloomier and generally don’t get your attention as quickly as the brighter parts of the scene.

Detail
These are parts of the image where there is a lot going on and a lot of detail and things just feel busy. Could be a crown of people, a complicated background, buildings with extensive external detail or simply just many different elements within a small part of the image.

Negative Space
Total opposite to detail, this is a part of the image which has nothing. It could be a completely washed out sky, it could be a shadow area that is so dark you can’t see any details or it could just be a very simple scene that does not have much if anything going on. Ideally it would also have a similar hue and tone. 

Weight

Now that you understand what the elements are, the next thing to talk about is how much weight does each element have in comparison to another. When I say weight I mean how much of your attention does a particular element take and how quickly does it take it. An element with a lot of weight will take more of your attention in less time compared to an element with less weight. 

Colour 
Bright & vibrant colours will command the most weight as they will take your attention almost immodestly. All you need is a small bit of colour within a somewhat dull scene to make 95% of your focus go on that specific colourful part of the image. This is one of the reasons why those single colour photos were trendy a few years ago. 

Highlights
As with colour, highlights will always command your attention first and your eyes will naturally gravitate towards the brighter elements within your frame. The brighter the element, the more weight and attention it will command. Compared to colour I would say they can be about the same, however if you have a bright element that is also vibrant, then that will for sure command the most weight and attention. 

Detail & Negative Space
I’ve batched these together because I feel they can equal out as long as both are of a similar tone and saturation, however in some cases depending on the situation, one of these will be heavier than the other. These elements will hold less weight than the highlights and colour but once you’ve moved on to looking at these elements, they can hold your attention for a little bit. The busy areas will have you looking closely at the details, almost like a Where’s Wally type of scenario where’s the negative space will simply take more real estate within the frame and will have you looking around trying to see if there is anything else going on.

Shadow
Finally the shadow area of your image will get the least amount of attention and will fall to the back of the queue when it comes to pecking order of the different elements. The main reason is that there is nothing within that area that is particularly eye catching so naturally you will see it last as you scan through the photo. 

Balance Principle

Now that you understand each element in detail, the next step is to understand how the elements interact with each other and most importantly how you can combine them together to achieve a balanced image or in other words a well composed image. The simplest way of putting it is that a well composed image is a balanced image. An image that doesn’t feel like it will tip over to the left or to the right. An image which doesn’t feel like its top or bottom heavy therefore forcing your attention off the screen and this is where the weight of individual elements comes into play. If you have a bright colour of a certain size, you will need a larger less saturated area to balance this out. If you have a bright blown out sky, then you would need a larger darker area to balance it out. In the same way if you have a large area of negative space, you would need an area in the image which has some detail in order to balance things out. Another way of putting it is that the bright and colourful elements in your image would need less real estate compared to the darker and less saturated areas. So in order to balance a bright spot that takes 1/4 of the frame, you might need to make sure the rest of the image is darker. 

Make Your Composition Stronger

Although this is the primary way I go about composing my images, there are also 3 little things which I always keep in the back of my mind and try to find in every photo. The reason I have not made such a big deal about them is not because they are not important, they are just as important as anything else I’ve mentioned, but they have been mentioned so many times that I would simply be repeating what you’ve heard over and over again. 

Leading Lines 
I always try to find leading lines that will take your eyes toward’s the subject and not away. They can be anything within the image that effectively point you towards what the viewer should be looking at. However they can work against you swell if they take your eyes away from the subject.

Framing
This is another well covered technique. Once you find a subject in the scene, you would then want to use other elements within the environment to frame your subject so that the viewer has a clear box within where to look for the subject. 

Foreground Element
The main purpose of foreground element within a composition perspective is to simply put the viewer within the photo and give context. Another way to describe this technique is to say “shooting through something”. A good example is having out of focus elements at bottom of the image.