Conquer Composition on Your Next Adventure, Part Three

29 Apr Conquer Composition on Your Next Adventure, Part Three

Composition is one of the key elements in making a good photograph. Add a good exposure and a good subject to a well-composed image, and you have a good photograph!

I this two-part column I’ll cover some of the basic rules of composition. In reading the rules, six per column, keep in mind that rules are meant to be broken. In other words, these “rules” are basically composition suggestions.

Let’s go!

Concept: Name of the Game Is to Fill the Frame

Reasoning: Without any “dead space” in the frame, the viewer can explore every inch of the frame.
Location: Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Concept: Find a Foreground Element

Reasoning: Subjects in the foreground give the view a sense of “being there.”
Location: Oregon

Concept: Negative Space Can Be Nice

Reasoning: Negative space opens up an image. When photographing moving subjects, we need to leave space into which a subject can “move.”
Location: Alaska

Concept: Dead Center is Deadly

Reasoning: Placing a subject in the center of the frame forces the viewer’s eye to get suck on the subject. When the subject is off center, the viewer’s eye look around the frame to see what else is in the image area.
Location: Royal Kingdom of Bhutan

Concept: Consider Your Odds

Reasoning: When we include an odd number of elements in a photograph, our eyes can’t pair them, which is something that we usually do subconsciously.
Location: Began, Myanmar

Concept: Love Those Leading Lines

Reasoning: Lines lead us toward the main subject in a frame. I included two images to illustrate leading lines because the line do not always need to lead directly toward the subject, which is what the patterns on the waves do in my Alaska photograph. In my Venice photograph, the lines, including the curved lines above the subject, lead the viewer toward the main subject.
Location: Alaska

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Rick Sammon

Rick Sammon is our regular and intrepid photo columnist here on Adventure Collection. To see more of his work, and to learn about his photography workshops, check out his web site: www.ricksammon.com.

Latest posts by Rick Sammon (see all)

• Perfecting Panoramas - April 25, 2015
• Making Images With Impact: Part 3 - March 23, 2015
• Making Images With Impact: Part Two - February 25, 2015