Composition In this episode I want to talk about Composition and how it relates to your photography. In the simplest of terms, composition is how elements of a photo are arranged. It can be made of many different parts or only a few select items. The key is how you the artist put these elements together within the framing of their camera and it is what makes an image become more or less interesting to the viewer. But why is Composition important in photography? Well how often have you seen a photograph that looked like it was taken in an exotic location with an interesting subject, but it didn’t do anything for you? The reason it didn’t “move” you is quite probably because the composition was off. Composition is the most important part of an image and something that takes time to master. Most anyone can become technically proficient with their camera, but until you do master composition, your photography will be lacking and not create the desired emotion in the viewer. Everyone these days has a camera, whether it’s a real camera or their smartphone, everything is being photographed or filmed most all of the time in this day and age. The problem is since so many people are snapping the same things all the time, most of these images are just crappy snapshots, so they won’t invoke any meaning to the viewer, they become mundane and lacking and it’s because even though most everyone has a camera these days, very few of them know anything about composition. If you learn to master composition in your photography and work hard to hone that skill, it is what will make you stand out as a photographer and help your business grow and be successful. Composition Concepts and Principals I am sure that a large share of the digital photographers out there don’t know the Concepts and Principals of Composition and as a result they will never make images that stand out of draw the viewer in. These elements are something to look for and will help you make interesting images that draw people in and tell a great story. When all of the concepts and principals of composition are leveraged together, they will make for aesthetically pleasing images that your audience will love.   Lines If you want to draw attention to a specific part of an image, one of the best ways to do that is with lines. There is nothing like a nice strong line pointing right at or in the direction of the subject to catch the viewer’s eye. The most common type of lines in a photograph are Leading Lines. Leading Lines can be one or more lines in a frame that draw the eye to the subject and keep it there so that the viewer takes in what is most important in the image, your intended subject, whether it’s a person, a place or thing. When it comes to lines, I try to bring them in from the corners because the corners are neutral and the “leading lines” don’t cut away part of the frame the same way a hard line from the edge of the frame will. A river or stream is a great way to bring “leading lines” as well as movement and even possibly color into your image and “Converging lines” can be the edges from multiple buildings or trees or other objects that help “lead” the eye where you want it to go. When they converge in the middle of the frame from all sides that can make for a really strong and compelling image. Shape and Form Shape and form are similar elements of design – the main difference being that things with form are three dimensional, having height, width and depth. Photography is a 3D representation of a scene, so where a painting might have more shapes in it, a photograph typically has more forms. The more interesting the form, the more interesting the image.