Good Composition in Photography

train station, Shanghai, China

Composition is such an important element in any type of art and photography is no exception. There are many aspects that can make a good photograph besides good composition. Things like emotional impact, storytelling, color, abstraction, motion, depth of field, story, narrative, historical significance, recording of memories, and many others. As I see it when you look at a ‘good’ photograph it should have one or more of these elements. I think of ‘good’ photograph being rated on a point system where you get one point for each ‘good’ attribute that the photograph contains. The more points, the more memorable the photograph, and then it is usually seen as being a better one. Think back to a photograph that you really like and see how many of these attributes it contains. Odds are there are a few of them. But I think that composition is the key. That is partly because I am a bit of a formalist. You can read more about formalism in my post ‘Photography Movements – Formalism‘. But the short answer is that a formalist sees design and form as the most important aspects of their work. While I am not a full on formalist, I do have a large component of it in my work. I like to explore Beauty in the world that is inherit in design, form, and layout. So my photographs all have a very large graphic design aspect to them and this leads to the importance of composition.

You can read more about some of the basic elements of composition in my articles on ‘10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Photos (Part 1)‘, ‘Part 2‘ and ‘Photographic Composition with Jim Zuckerman‘.

The image above is from Shanghai, China and it utilizes what I call ‘exploded composition’. This is something that I really like to do. It is where the elements of the image are moved out towards the corners or edges of the frame. This leaves negative space in the middle of the image. This is a form of minimalist composition. I am a very big fan of minimalism, once again because it relies so much on solid composition. With so many different types of composition; rule of thirds, diagonals, golden ratio, golden mean, sacred geometry,etc., you should try them out and see what works best with your images. In future posts I will go into more detail on some of these more advanced compositional ideas.

Gary Miller

www.redphotophotography.com

Houston Fine Art Wedding Photographer

Houston Wedding Photographer

Eye Candy and Brain Veggies

Related posts:

1. Photographic Composition with Jim Zuckerman