Composition
Composition is all about putting together objects in your viewfinder in such a way as to emphasise the bits you want and making them stand out in just the right way. Composition can strengthen the photographers message and can create more interest. These objects include anything in the foreground, the background. Composition can make your photo stand out. Below are some of my own examples of when I have used composition.
Diagonals:
Diagonal lines generally work well to draw the eye of the viewer through the photograph. They create points of interest as they intersect with other lines and often give images depth by suggesting the viewpoint
Triangles:
The triangle composition draws our eye to the three individual parts that make up the triangle. initially leads you to look at each subject for the same amount of time. The triangular relationship between three objects that can balance each other out is pleasing to the human eye. This is because it creates a continuous journey through the scene.
Leading Lines:
Leading lines is a compositional element that carries our eye through the photograph to the end or even infinity. It easy for the human eye to follow the lines, therefore it is nice to have something amusing at the end of the path to create interest.
Curves:
Curves are graceful, rhythmic, dynamic and add energy to an image. They can separate or connect elements or simply offer a balance. You can use C curves, arches, s curves, circles, and implied curves
Rule Of Thirds:
The rule of thirds is based on a grid split in 3, horizontally and vertically to make 9 parts. The grid helps us to put key features on the four corners of the middle box aswell as giving us useful positions for elements in the photo. The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally.
The eyes of the snowman cross the horizonal line. The end on the snowman is on the veritcal line and the start of the candle holder meets on the vertical line.
Negative Space:
Negative space draws the eye to the positive space which the element of interest. It helps the subject to stand out and attract the viewer’s attention. As well as leaving space you can also fill the frame, this make the viewer's focus go on small details.
Symmetry, Reflection & Shadows
Keeping your subject symmetrical is another good technique to use in photography. You can get to explore and be creative when finding symmetry as you search for very similar objects or you can use reflection or shadows to help you to get the symmetry.
Patterns And Textures:
Patterns and textures can be found everywhere in nature and man-made constructions, even if it is the most finest of detail. In photography, we can focus the whole photograph on the pattern or texture, or, we can have texture and pattern within the scene. Textures especially can help us to show proximity as the viewer feels like they are there, close to the textures. Textures and patterns also help to give feeling to the photograph as the viewer can see the small detail.
Point Of View
Point of view is taking photographs from different points of view helps the viewers to see the scene from a different angle. This is interesting as if we give other points of view, we can see the image in a unique way. There are many different points of view such as birds eye view, eye level, below view, side view and by becoming the subject.
Figure To Ground
Figure to ground is using having a strong contrast between a subject and it's background. E.g having a dark subject against a light subject. If you look below the white dot stands out against the black and the black dot stands out against the white. As their is a strong contrast the viewers eye easily gets attracted the main part of the photograph. Using colours opposite on the colour wheel can also create strong contrast.
Sources: digital-photography-school.com/