Photo talk - Lesson 2 - More on composition - "faces, lines and crops"

First off, I'm so excited that people are doing these! It's really fun to see what you do with your photos, so thank you for playing and sharing your work with me! I'm going to ask Dave to put a link over on the side so these lessons can be archived and easy to find.

This week we're sticking with composition so you can keep practicing the rule of the thirds while you think about these other things.

Faces. When shooting portraits and using the rule of thirds, you want your subject "moving into the frame." Especially if they are walking or looking away from the camera. Basically, this just means, you want the person to be facing the empty space in the portrait, not facing the edge of the portrait. A good way to visualize this is to imagine yourself in a box. If you were to stand in a box, you would automatically position yourself with your back to one side of the box and most of the empty space in front of you. In pictures, it often makes the viewer uncomfortable to see the subject facing the edge of the picture, or walking right out of it with all the empty space behind them. The other problem is the viewer of the image will follow the gaze or movement of the subject. If they're right on the edge of the photo, there is nowhere for the viewers eyes to go but off the picture, and you don't want that! You want to keep them looking at the picture! Here are some examples.

See how the movement is going towards the right of the image? And she's facing that way, but she's on the left? So your eye starts at Aria and follows the movement into the picture, then goes back to Aria. Make sense?





This one is more posed, but you can see how your eye stays inside the image because they're both facing in. Can you see how if I would have turned either one of them around to face the edge, your eye would follow them right out of the image?




A non-portrait example. This picture has 2 focal points, the front of the church with the door and cross where the light is falling and then the sign. If I had photographed the church by itself, it could stand alone if I kept it in the same general space, but had I moved the camera so that the door and cross were along the left side of the image and the whole right side was just the plain side of the church, it would lose a lot of it's impact.


I hope this is all making sense. Remember, rules can be broken, but it's best to learn to use the rule first, before you start experimenting with creating a good image while breaking the rules. (it can be done, but often it's because you're allowing a different rule to take precedence over the rule you're breaking. Like maybe the lighting...) Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Lines. Lines can be tricky in images because the viewers eye follows the line. If the line leads out of the image, you just lost your viewer. If the line leads to a focal point, you've created a good image.

Here the line of the railroad track leads right to the main subject.


Because of the angle I chose on this one, the lines of the logs lead to the end of the log where your eye stops. Had I taken this picture with the logs going completely from one side of the image to the other, your eyes would follow the line right out of the image. Make sense?


Lines can also be used for framing. It's a bit different, but if you have a framing opportunity, use it! It keeps the eye right on the subject when you've framed them properly.

A couple framing examples.





Crop. Cropping is fairly simple. When you're doing a portrait that isn't a full length portrait you want to crop the person off in places that don't make the viewer uncomfortable. Basically, you want to avoid the joints. Cropping off just somebodies hands right at the wrist doesn't look that good. Same with feet at the ankles. Go for the forearm, calves, thighs or waist.

Mid-thigh crop example.


Don't be afraid to get in close. In fact, change your fear...be afraid to be back too far. When you're taking pictures of your kids, what do you want to see? Their face! Their eyes! Their expression! Get in there, people. Eliminate all that dead space in your images that's surrounding the thing you really want to see.

Getting in close.


Alright...let's see those images! Feel free to ask questions in the comments!