Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Photography and portraiture - The second part of the construction method-tripartite structure

The second part of the construction method-tripartite structure

Many people will think that there is little difference between the three-point composition method and the nine-square composition method. In fact, I also have such doubts. In order not to confuse these two composition methods in conceptual understanding, we need to understand the three-point composition method in combination with daily shooting scenes.

Let's take a look at this photo first:

The horizon in the picture is located in the lower third of the picture, and the whole picture is cut into three parts on average, which is a typical three-part composition.

So is this picture.

3. How to make a three-point composition?

1) the water (ground) level is placed at one third.

Whether shooting vertically or horizontally, when shooting a scene with horizontal lines, try to arrange the horizontal lines in one third of the picture. As for whether it is above or below, it depends on personal feelings.

Placed above, away from the viewer, can arouse people's imagination and leave room for imagination; And put it below, you can close the distance with the audience and increase the intimacy.

2) Using the visual path of characters

When shooting people or other animals, there is a situation where the subject is not looking at the camera and the orientation of his eyes is very clear. At this time, we can guide his visual path, put a part of the subject (preferably the eyes) at the position of the three-point line, and leave a proper space in front of the line of sight.

In the picture below, the model's eyes are just at the position of the three-point line, and the way she looks down through the window can arouse the viewer's reverie more.

3) Clever use of diagonal lines

If the scene has obvious diagonal characteristics, we might as well divide the picture into three equal parts, make diagonal composition, and put the corners of the subject at the bisector.

At the same time, trisection composition is also the most commonly used composition method in portrait photography. Its advantage is that it can give people a pleasant and vivid feeling visually, avoiding the boring feeling of people-centered, thus helping us to make better composition. Let's look at some photos and have a brief understanding of the embodiment of the three-point composition method in actual photography.

I also read this sentence today: "The only rule of photography is that there are no rules."

Photography, like a person's growth process, is always in the cycle of knowing rules and breaking them. It is more like a language, changing with time. Once the rules were forgotten and replaced by ideas that didn't exist before.

Are the rules important? This is undeniable. If my Chinese writing ability is a little irregular, you may not understand what I'm saying. Every era, different cultures and different groups have their own modes of communication, which are not so much laws as observations and summaries.

Although mastering these summaries can promote communication, it can also make us stay in this invisible framework, because it is very comfortable and efficient, and comfort and efficiency are often the chief culprit to stifle creativity.

There are many generally accepted laws in photography creation, which seem to bring us efficiency and give us a direction to move forward, but we will eventually find that it takes more from us than from us. These, I call them myths.

Not all rules are myths, but most myths start with some observed laws, which seem reasonable, but they are a stumbling block on our photography road. Therefore, the composition method should be used reasonably.