Centered composition is one of the most effective artistic techniques, but one needs certain abilities to use it effectively. When you simply put the key subject of an image exactly in the geometrical centre of a shot, you are likely to get a primitive linear pattern.

The reader might have seen a good deal of works by aspiring photographers, which depict a standing or sitting person in the centre of an image. Besides, such subjects usually stand with all their body turned to the camera and look directly at the camera, while the position of their figures go along the vertical axis of a shot. It is obvious that when creating such shots the photographer sets a primitive task: s/he wants the figure of his/her subjects to be well seen to the viewer. And using such a composition, the photographer manages to achieve this goal, but is it enough? Such shots are so primitive, that even sharply defined figures don’t make an image valuable.

But our example photo has nothing to do with a primitive linear pattern we have just spoken about, despite the fact it has a centered composition. Our image has a rich and complicated structure. A centered group in this image is only a beginning element of a well-developed composition. The group itself is asymmetrically arranged, besides it has some supplementary elements.

The centered group leads the viewer’s eye to the second important element of the image, it is a helicopter. That makes the shot deep: from the foreground of the shot the eye moves to the other parts of the picture situated in the background. Apart from the group of people, there are lots of interesting details in this shot, which create a nice setting of the photo – a helicopter, hills far away, snow.  

The firmness of a centered composition doesn’t allow using it in action shots. Fast-moving subjects in the centre of a shot lose their dynamism in a way, movements seem to slow down, and even stop.

Read more tips on COMPOSITION:

• Balance Photography
• Asymmetry in Photography

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