As I have already mentioned in the previous post Build a Composition You Can Be Proud Of, composition creates a mood of a photograph and arouses certain emotions. It can be static and dynamic, it can direct attention towards the center of an image or vice versa take the eye away from it.  

1. If you want to add dynamics to an image, you have to make the eye move along the image. If you want to create an illusion of a subject moving forwards, put it on an imaginable line that comes from the upper left corner to the lower right one (picture 1). Direction from the lower left corner to the upper right will create an illusion of a subject moving away. The latter also creates a perspective.

Picture 1

2. Imagine a man coming up the mountains. Where would you place? Which is the best direction to show a movement upwards? If you put him on the line coming from the upper right corner, it will seem that he is coming downwards, won’t it? On the contrary, if you will place him on the line coming from the lower right corner, we will create an illusion of him coming upwards (picture 1). But in any case it will mean movement.

3. Now let’s look at picture 3. We notice a monitor first and then the eye moves and sees people, don’t we? On picture 4, it is vice versa. Direction of people’s faces, arrangement of elements in a composition makes the eye move from one element to another in both cases, BUT in a former case the monitor is the main subject and in a latter case – people’s faces.

Pictures 3 and 4.   

4. Pictures 5 and 6 have the same subjects, which are directed to different sides. The subjects have the same places on both images. Although these two pictures have identical arrangement of figures, these figures have completely different directions, which strongly affects perception of images.

Pictures 4 and 5.

Practice

       * Start practice with building a simple composition. Choose the most interesting for you geometrical shape (a simple one: a triangle, a circle, a rectangular). Try to put elements of composition so that the eye moves from one element to an other and thus form a chosen by you shape. Direct the eye using the information above. Try to force the viewer to observe objects in a certain order. Place the main object in a favorable point of an image.

       * For more complicated composition, combine several different shapes. Every next time you will be able to use more and more complicated shapes and their combinations in order to direct the eye, where you want it to go. That will train your eye, which will help you in the future to choose focus and focus point.

Technorati Tags: composition, digital photography, photo practice, photography tutorial, tips

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Professional Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.