Photography composition tips

As promised a while ago, here are some rules on composition you need to know about. As usual, half the skill comes in knowing when to apply them and when to turn a blind eye.

The rule of thirds

..is a useful one. It says that you divide the image into a grid, jut like the one below. Then, when you're composing your shot, you place significant items along / up any of those lines. Horizons are easy, place on the lower line for an airy feel, on the upper line for a more closed-in feel.

Put your main subject somewhere where two lines cross and you'll boost its power, its dominance in the shot. Have a look at the following images.

In Firefox (others?), you can drag the grid and slide it on top of the images here (let go and it'll pop back). Look at what it tells you about where I've placed the various elements in these compositions. You'll notice things don't have to be exact—near the lines / crossing-points works too, I think you'll agree.

Lead-in lines

As it says on the tin... lines that lead the eye in and guide the viewer to your main subject. It can be a hit-you-in-the-face, straight shooting line like here (and in the piccies above) or it can be a meandering line that takes you to various points in the image, before continuing to the next.

Foreground interest

If you have a shot that takes in a lot of distance that also includes the foreground, then you need something to initially grab the viewer's interest and bring them into the rest of the shot. And that's what foreground interest is. Without that bundle of paper, or the post on the beach, those shots would lose a lot of power.

Distractions

Well, I haven't got any examples from my work for this heading! I'm always very careful with distractions (a bit of a pedant actually!). So what do I mean? Well there's a couple of things that fit here. (I'm assuming here you're past the point of shooting people with telegraph poles sticking out their heads!)

First Contrasting areas near the edge of the frame. For example, if you have mainly dark borders with a light blob next to the image edge, then the viewer's eyes will be pulled right to that blob and then likely right out the picture. Even if they're looking in the body of the image, as soon as their eyes get anywhere near that blob, bang, they'll be drawn right to it. Or maybe it's a tree branch sticking its nose in, or some other distraction intruding into the frame.

Second For example, one or two birds that are just dots in the sky (or maybe there's one or to spots of chewing gum on the pavement in a street scene). If the sky is uniform and those dots contrast against it, again the viewer's eyes will notice. But once their attention is drawn, there's nothing but dirty smudges to see. Sorry, they've got to go. A stray crisp bag, one corner poking into the scene from under a bush?—get rid of it.

Simplicity

If there's no good reason to include something in your shot, don't! Of course, when you're shooting from the hip because there's lots going on, well, the finer points go right out the window then anyway.

For other situations, those where you have more time and control, simplify, simplify and simplify again. Ok, again these are extreme examples, but they serve to illustrate.

Another example, say you're taking a macro (close-up) shot of some mushrooms under a tree. Remove any stray twigs, leaves or other detritus—it's mushrooms you're photographing after all!

Height

Don't always shoot standing up. Varying the height from which you shoot can have a huge impact on the final shot. Shooting kids / pets? Get down to their eye level, get below it if you can. Shoot a worm's eye view of a scene, getting as close to the ground as you can. Jump up on a wall to introduce foreshortening or just to get interesting lines.

In a nutshell

Place important elements along those powerful thirds' lines / intersections. Consider how to bring the viewer's eye into the picture, look for what can serve as lead in lines and / or foreground interest. Have a quick glance around for distractions and watch out for areas of high contrast along the frame edges.

Next steps

Use and abuse these rules the next time you get the chance. Try to get a feel for which compositional approach suits each scene you take a fancy to. Walk a few steps in each direction from the first viewpoint you naturally gravitate towards. See how any possible lead-in lines change their relationship with the scene as you move. Crouch down, step up high, look for foreground interest.

...and let me know how you get on, post a link in the comments. I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on.


comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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RAW setting / file type explained

One of my followers, Gail (thanks for the question Gail) asked about RAW and I said I would answer it in my next post. So here goes -- note that I keep mentioning jpeg but the same pretty much applies to tiff (an option on some cameras), too.

In short

A RAW file records the output of all the tiny cells on your camera's sensor when the shot was captured, with each cell producing a brightness value for the amount of red, blue and green light falling on it.

In a sense, it's much the same for film cameras. When you take a shot, what's on the film? Just the chemical gel, with some of the light-sensitive chemicals changed by their reaction to the red, blue and green light falling on them. You then take the film to be processed to produce a negative -- a one way process.

Without RAW, your camera immediately converts the sensor output to jpeg, before storing it on your memory card -- a one way process. And because the sensor captures far more information than can be stored in jpeg format, a lot is discarded during the conversion.

What is the extra information that is lost?

The range from dark to bright recorded by the sensor is much wider than can be held in a jpeg; in a RAW file, it's like you have 7 different exposures in one, from -3 stops to +3 stops. Say you took the shot at 100 ASA, f8, 1/100s, then most digital cameras' sensors will capture the equivalent of f22, f16, f11, f8, f5.6, f4, f2.8 all in one RAW file.

Of course, with a jpeg, it records things at just one exposure setting, the one you (or the camera) set when you took the shot.

What other practical things does a RAW file allow you to do?

White Balance

This is real useful. You see, another thing that conversion fixes in stone is the "white balance". Unless you remembered to set it correctly, shots taken indoors or under street lamps can end up with a horrid yellow or blue colour cast. But with RAW you get to play with the white balance (also called colour temperature), try it this way, try it that, to see what works best for the shot.

Sharpening

Even when perfectly focused, all sensors produce a slightly unsharp image and your camera, in converting to jpeg, applies a standard amount of sharpening. Well, you guessed, a RAW file doesn't have any sharpening applied, it's something you get a chance to play with once it reaches your pc.

Downside to shooting in RAW

The size of a RAW file is much bigger than jpeg and therefore fills up your memory card much quicker, and also takes longer to save to it. It also means it takes longer for you to end up with a finished image, as you have to make all the decisions (after playing around!) rather than the camera making them for you at the time of the shot.

To sum up

RAW is like an exposed but unprocessed film.
Shooting in RAW leaves all the important decisions to you and, maybe most importantly, gives you a lot of flexibility to correct exposure and white balance where the camera (or you!) gets it wrong.

As usual, your comments and questions are welcome :)

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Shooting pets without a studio setup

On second thoughts, I'm not so sure that's a good post title - still I'm a photographer so peeps should know that I don't imply I'm killing them!

Anyway, this is aimed at folks who don't have a studio or expensive studio lighting or, if you're like me and you're an opportunist photographer, you don't go everywhere armed with tripod, reflectors or any form of lighting other than a flash gun.

All you'll need -- a camera, a flash gun and an off-camera flash cable ( because you won't be wanting the flash mounted on the camera). And if your camera supports it, shoot in RAW mode for maximum exposure flexibility.

So how do you make the shot when the situation arises? Well here's one I made, following all the suggestions below.

Finished shot

This is how the shot of Bonnie, a Pomeranian, turned out. I'm pleased with the composition, the lighting, the texture of her fur and the sharp focus on her eyes. I did get a little softness, caused by movement blur, but it's at an acceptable level to my eye.

Tips to make the shot

Spend time getting to know and befriending the subject

They must be relaxed with both you and your camera (and the fill-in flash if you need to use it).

When they're relaxed with you, their inner character comes through and it's a a look that the owner will identify with.

So have the camera round your neck and stroke and talk to the pet. It's rather easy with our four-legged friends but needs a different approach with pet birds.

I'm not focusing on birds in this post, but I will say this about gaining a bird's confidence and befriending it. With birds, instead of stroking, you can offer food, talking to the bird gently and quietly the whole time. When the bird comes to take the food, blow very gently at the top of the neck and behind where you'd imagine the ear to be. Do this against the lie of the feathers, so your warm breath gently penetrates to the skin. They'll be a little unsure at first but will get to like it real quick.

Natural Lighting

Go for low ambient lighting, ideally on a bright day with light coming through a window and falling obliquely on the subject, but leaving the rest of the room quite dark. This will give shape and form to the animal's head and body and nice areas of highlight and shadow. It will also provide good texture in the animals coat.

I'll talk about fill-in flash below.

Background

Make sure the background is uncluttered. If they have a favourite dark blanket, then pose them on that. If not, use one you've taken with you (very unlikely in my case!) or get one from the owner. Obviously if it's the pet's favourite, it'll feel much more at ease on that, familiar smells etc.

Composition

Well, with no tripod you'll be hand-holding the camera. Unless you're an absolute whiz with a tripod, this gives you a lot more flexibility -- you'll be able to focus your energies on composition rather than have to keep moving a tripod around.

Think about whether you want just a head shot or whether and how much of the body to include. Make sure the animal isn't looking directly at the camera but off into the middle distance -- and make sure there's enough 'space' for it to look into.

Get down to their eye level. In our day-to-day lives, those who we're 'connecting' with are at our eye-level -- we're not looking down at them and we're not looking up to them. So to get this same connection in your photos, you have to be at their eye-level.

Drawing the viewer's attention where you want it to be. You can do this in many different ways. Positioning that point on one of the rule-of-thirds intersections is one. Another is by choosing a low depth of field -- or how much of the shot is in focus -- and then focusing your camera on the point where you want their attention. With a small aperture number, anywhere further away or closer than that point will then be blurry.

And where should that point of focus be? The eyes of course, as they're the doorway to the soul and will be where most of the character of the pet comes through. And it's ok if the nose isn't sharply in focus as that brings attention back to the eyes.

Fill-in Flash

With all this low light I'm recommending, you're going to be hard pushed to achieve a fast enough shutter speed to prevent blurring a) because the camera is hand-held and b) because the pet naturally moves, even if it's just a slight turn of the head.

Fill-in flash to the rescue - but never when mounted on your camera.

You're really using the flash for two purposes, one to freeze any movement (of the pet or your hand-held camera) and the other, to provide a light source that sculpts the features of the pet, head and body. This is why the flash mustn't be camera-mounted -- because sculpting light has to fall obliquely across the subject.

Don't be afraid to take plenty of shots, trying bounced light shots, if circumstances allow, or just by holding the flash at different angles and distances from the subject. The low ambient light will prevent harsh shadows, even if you point the flash fairly directly at the subject and from quite close.

And all this can be a tall order, holding a heavy-ish camera in one hand and a flash in the other, while still holding the camera steady enough that you don't get motion blur. Still, no one promised easy :)

Once in the Digital Darkroom

Just a quick covering of this area as I've covered this to enough depth in the postings about Hamish and Willow, Bonnie's pups.

What you're trying to do in the digi darkroom is to enhance the lighting, texture and composition.

So in a nutshell, here's the techniques used; pretty standard workflow for me:

• TLR Capture sharpening
• Copy of background layer for a touch of dodging the highlights and burning the mid-tones -- this to help the light sculpting and texture of the fur
• Convert to mono via the b/w filter and adjust colour sliders to get best conversion
• A v. slight increase in contrast: add a curves layer, unmodified, changed blending mode to overlay and backed off opacity to 9% -- btw, this is a brilliant technique for applying contrast
• Add a levels layer and give it a nudge to ensure I've got tones from deep black to pure white
• Add a subtle vignette to help bring attention to her face: new layer filled with black, change blend mode to soft light, use softest eraser (about 2/3rds size of image) and erase from corners to Bonnie's face, change layer opacity to around 50%
  
• Save, flatten layers, convert to jpeg, add a slight touch of sharpening using the unsharp mask
• Save as new file and upload to here.
  

Your turn

Well, if you find this useful I'd love to see your results. Drop off your links in the comments. If you've got any tips of your own that you want to pass on or to help me improve, please feel free :)

Learning, learning, every day a school day!

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Breaking the mould in your shots

Useful techniques for over-photographed locations

So, you find yourself with friends or family at a world-famous location that has been shot by the best and under every favourable lighting condition there is. What's the point in even getting your camera out?

Well people don't often think outside the box when faced with famous monuments or scenes, so if you do, you're likely to make a pretty unique capture!

For me, the best lens for this situation is a 17-85mm with in-built image stabilisation. It gives opportunities for deep perspective and closeups / framing of things a little bit distant. The flexibility this sort of lens gives increases the chances of you making a capture you'll be pleased with dramatically.

In summary

Think about these creative elements and how they might work, camera in hand:

• Angle
• Viewpoint
• Height
• Extreme close-up
• Pattern
• Texture
• Abstract
• Observation
  
• Think "black and white"
  

...and the more commonly photographed the monument or scene is, the more extreme you'll need to get!

Unusual Angle

This is the sculpture of St. George and The Dragon (der Heilige Georg als Drachentoter) by Carl Eduard August Kiss, 1855.

I was with a wedding party walking from the church to the reception being held on a canal boat when I saw this fantastic sculpture. I hung back briefly, searching for an angle I could use. Obviously it must have been photographed by thousands of people, but it's quite constrained as to possible points of view.

It was next to the path beside the canal, so you'd have to be on the other side of the canal with a hefty zoom lens to get the whole in frame while giving leeway for composition. The view from the approaches from both up and down the path were obstructed until you were quite close.

But, among some bushes that were just outside a bar, set a little off the path, and then with an overhanging bough pushed up and out the way, this revealed itself through the zoom lens. The thing I liked about it was that you see things from the dragon's aspect; looking almost directly up while being trodden by the horse and impaled by that cold, implacable look from St. George, your slayer, while you desperately rear up to claw and rend the source of your pain.

Viewpoint

I was in Vilnius, Lithuania, kindly being shown around by a friend. She brought me through some back streets to this famous landmark, the Bernardine Church of St Francis and St Bernardino.

As I walked around looking for an interesting and unusual viewpoint I noticed the statue of the famous Polish poet, Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (adopted by Lithuania as a sort of national poet).

As you can see here, it turned out that the almost reverential pose of the poet works harmoniously with the church's fascia and the painting of Christ on the cross. I had to crouch a little to get the alignment I wanted between the poet's head and the church.

Height

This is the clock tower of the Melville building in Royal William Yard. Pretty much whenever I'm down there, I see someone with a camera stood in the front taking the obvious shot.

Well, not being satisfied with the obvious, when I wanted to make my shot of this building, I did a quick run around. The swing bridges looked promising and I could see how a conjunction of possibilities might work. The bridge surface at that time was clad in beautifully grained wood and by getting down to a low crouch (and then a lower one!) I was able to arrange the conjunction between the bridge, the railings and the building.

Close-ups

Ok, so I was at the Eden Project in Cornwall. The Core Building, used for teaching, displays and projects, has some unusual architecture but again, I wanted something a little different.

I looked around and noticed that instead of having traditional guttering, they used water channels -- to me, a layman as far as architecture is concerned, this seemed quite unusual. So that and the texture / patina of the metal roof cladding, was the basis for my shot.

I was pretty much at the far end of the zoom to get this close-up, so I was glad to have my default lens on and not have to fiddle around in my camera case... ah, the joys of a 17-85mm lens!

Seek out the pattern

These "sails" form an architectural superstructure to a superstore in Plymouth. They are designed to carry the wind, which sweeps up the River Plym from the sea, up and away from the shoppers and car park.

They form a great pattern but their full glory is only really accessible from one point where they are unobstructed and no other distracting elements end up in the viewfinder.

...and that one spot was standing on tippy-toes, balanced on the slightly raised surround to a tree planting between some parked cars at the edge of the property.

Texture

A freshly ploughed field in Devon, where the soils are renowned for their fertility and their rich reds.

As a by-the-way, the reds arise from the high content of the iron ores present in the soils, a side effect of the geological history of this part of the UK .

With different framing and a slight turn to the right (and later in the season when the crops are rising), there is a nicely "twee" shot of a typical Devon farm nestling amongst the rolling hills ....which I resisted this time :)

Abstract

I had been trying to get a useful shot of the National Marine Aquarium for ages. It has some quite unusual architecture, embodying the rise and fall of the ocean swell in its curves.

Given it's position opposite Plymouth Barbican, and the fact that on land, there are only two approaches to it -- across the lock bridge from the Barbican or from the Queen Anne's Battery direction, hugging the coast -- the possibilities are quite restricted.

I had tried a long lens from various points along the Barbican but I was getting the same old same old. On one particular day I had walked to the Barbican from home and this took me along the QAB approach. Not the first time I had walked that route but it was the first time I noticed the possibilities. After a bit of jiggling around to get the right point of view and framing, I managed this capture.

Much more effective than a standard NMA shot -- nicely abstract with a "future" feel to it, so I called it Teleportation Module.

Observation

If you've been following my blog you'll have seen this image a couple of times before. I've included it under this heading because it was a shot from nothing while I was shooting the International Barbican Jazz and Blues Festival at exactly this same time last year.

The blues band in session at the time were taking a break and I was hanging around for them to re-start, so I could get on with my brief. While checking out other possible points of view that would work for the band, I noticed that the little rope barriers all finished with a tied knot.

Aha! There's a possibility here, so I checked out all of them until I found one that was just exquisite and, really luckily, also had a perfect, bland backdrop.

So, keep your eyes open -- don't just focus your mind on the purpose in hand, keep aware of likely opportunities that happenstance puts around you.

Black and White

I was staying here at the Holiday Inn, M4,J4 on business and took a wander in the late afternoon searching out possible shots.

This was a subject that couldn't possibly work in colour (well, I couldn't see how, anyway). The concrete of the hotel was aged and grubby, the windows all had the same nondescript blinds and curtains. But, nevertheless, there were aspects of the architecture that I thought would prove quite powerful in a BW shot and the sky was brewing up a great cloudscape.

I slowly homed in on this end of the building as most interesting for a deep perspective shot and saw some trees that might give good framing. Not only did they cooperate but they gave a softening counterpoint to the hard concrete and a sense of scale to the shot that worked quite well.

So if you're at a loss for a new take, forget colour, think line, pattern, perspective, texture and shape. Pay careful attention to the interaction of the lines and shapes with the frame and each other.

Conclusion on being creative in your photography

Don't be constrained by the usual, think outside the box, look for the hard-to-reach point of view, if there's something to climb on safely and legally -- try that. If all else fails go close-up, think black and white, try a worm's-eye view.

Now, as a challenge to yourself, go out in the backyard, try out some of the above and make 50 -- yes, fifty! -- captures.

Tall order? Don't be frightened, they don't all have to be different subjects. Same subject different point of view, different aperture (for different depth of field), different framing, up close and wide angle, a little further away and zoomed in.

Maybe check for interesting textures in logs, old walls, a pile of rubble...

now over to you...

Please feel free to drop off links to what you achieved, if you decide to give this a go :)

Happy hunting!

[Thanks to canonblogger for inspiring me to write this post]

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