Composition along with color and light is a means of expressing authors idea and conveying the message of a photograph. Composition is connected with the psychology of visual perception. Although the role of composition in photography is highly exaggerated – composition along with equipment is considered the most important element by many photographers, we still should not diminish the importance of photography composition.

A successful composition of your landscape can accentuate the viewer’s attention and orient them towards the main idea. While a poor composition may spoil any image. It will not give the jest of a story that a photographer wanted to tell us. Now let’s take a closer look at some composition techniques and learn how to use them in landscape photography.

1. If you want your landscape give a feeling of space and breadth, it is recommended creating so called ‘open’ composition with centrifugal axes. Such composition should not limit the viewer’s eye, but should evoke the feeling of incompleteness and allow the viewer imagine by yourself what was not included in a shot.

   2. If on the contrary you want to show the courtesy of a quiet corner, a ‘close’ composition is the best choice. Centripetal forces draw viewers’ attention to the centre or any other part of an image. This kind of composition is complete and orients the viewer towards its main idea.

You can create such composition, if you frame an image at its side or upper edge with any visual element, for example branches, high blades, a tree, a cloud, etc. It is a widely used technique that is called framing.

As the sky often breaks the coziness of a scenery, many photographers simply do not include the sky in a shot, especially in city landscapes. If you want to take a water landscape photograph, such as the sunset at the lake, it is highly advisable to frame the lower part of an image, if you use close composition. I want to draw your attention to the fact that both ‘open’ and ‘close’ composition has its central part and our aim to accentuate it. 

Technorati Tags: digital photography, photography composition, landscape photography, photography tips

Share This

Sort by: Featured itemsBestsellingPrice: low to highPrice: high to lowNewest arrivals

Find by Keyword(s):

Canon PowerShot SD770IS 10MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver) Sale:$162.00	Canon PowerShot A590IS 8MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Sale:$100.00

More news:

Top Cameras of 2008
Canon Powershot E1
Casio Exilim EX-Z300
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28
Samsung SL310W
Olympus FE-370
Casio Exilim EX-Z250
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700
Canon G10
DIWA Gold Awards - Fujifilm S100fs, Canon EOS 40D and 450D DSLR

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 1:06 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.