Ten Skills for Effectively Improving Photographic Composition

A common mistake that beginners make when learning photography is that they are too greedy and want to take pictures of everything in front of them, hoping that others can see something as interesting as themselves. Although it is a good record to photograph all the elements, it often makes your photos lack a clear theme, so that they are too messy and lose the story meaning expressed in them. On the contrary, you can simplify the scene as much as possible, only take some really interesting things, and remove redundant or irrelevant elements, and you will find that the theme of the photo will be more prominent.

Filled photo frame

If there are many irrelevant things or blanks around a photo, the protagonist is not prominent enough. At this time, you can fill in the photos as much as possible, make good use of the zoom function, or take a few more steps to enrich the photos.

3. Make good use of different photo scales

Although horizontal composition is more convenient for hand-held camera shooting, it would be boring if every photo is composed horizontally. In many cases, vertical composition can also produce beautiful effects and even highlight the theme of photos. If you don't know which to shoot, try both.

Also, the ratio of photos doesn't have to be 3:2 or 4:3. Try using different scales in the camera, such as 1: 1 and 16:9, to make your photos more diverse.

4. Don't always put the theme in the middle.

Many beginners always put the subject in the middle of the photo, which sometimes makes the photo look ordinary and ugly. Try to make good use of trisection or golden section, and put the subject at those four intersections, so that the photos taken will look better.

Use guide lines

A photo without careful composition often lacks focus, so that readers don't know where to look. In order to avoid this situation, we might as well find a good "guide line" to lead readers' eyes to the theme. The guide line is not necessarily a real line, but a row of street lamps and a few stones. In short, find an angle to connect these separated objects. Of course, we should also make good use of physical lines such as roads and railings.

Use diagonal lines

Diagonal is also a very common way of composition, which is very suitable for expressing dynamic or energetic effects, compared with the fluency in horizontal and vertical directions.

7. Reserve space for "moving objects"

Photography: Dave Wilson

When people see an object, they often imagine what it will do or become in the next second. So when shooting some moving objects (whether they are really moving or feeling moving), please leave a little space in their moving direction, so that the photos will appear more harmonious.

8. Blur the background and highlight the main body

Photography: Craig letourneau

This way of composition can be said to be necessary for photographers. Using the shallow depth of field effect, the subject can be highlighted from the messy or complex background, which is not only suitable for portrait shooting, but also useful in static objects, landscape close-ups and architectural photography.

9. Make good use of color contrast

Contrast can be said to be one of the simplest and most important composition techniques. Novices can learn from color contrast. You just need to find the opposite color system to shoot, such as yellow, blue, red and green. When composing a composition, you can not only compare these two colors side by side, but also express them in a surrounding way (such as a little red in the green leaves).

10. Don't stick to the theory and play freely.

In fact, the theory of composition skills is only the beginning. You can try it boldly when shooting. As long as the story behind the photo can be expressed, some unconventional composition methods can enhance the appeal of the photo!