Why Do Photographers Often Overlook the Synergy of Composition and Exposure?

Why Do Photographers Often Overlook the Synergy of Composition and Exposure?

The interplay between composition and exposure is crucial. Understanding how these elements work together allows us to create images that are not only technically accurate but also emotionally compelling.

In other words, composition and exposure are interdependent. We can enhance our visual storytelling by examining how these fundamental aspects of our art collaborate. In photography, we can change the amount of light that exposes the picture by adjusting the light source, the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Each of these affects the composition.

Balancing Light and Composition

Photography is both an art and a science. Therefore, manipulating light is an integral part of composition and exposure. Light's direction, intensity, color, and diffusion influence the placement of elements within the frame and the overall mood of the image.

For example, side light enhances texture and depth, while backlighting can create silhouettes and dramatic contrasts. Psychologically, yellow, orange, and red lights give a feeling of warmth and comfort, whereas blues and greens feel colder. Diffused lighting can help soften a composition, while intense, focused light gives well-defined shadows and feels harsh.

Consequently, we must consider how light interacts with the subject and the overall scene to create a harmonious composition.

Depth of Field and Focus

Aperture settings affect both composition and exposure. The former refers to the depth of field, and the latter to the picture's overall brightness.

Understanding how depth of field influences composition allows photographers to manipulate focus creatively. A wide aperture (e.g., f/1.8) helps isolate the subject by blurring the background, drawing attention to whatever is in focus. Conversely, a narrower aperture (e.g., f/11) ensures sharpness throughout the scene. That is why a smaller aperture is usually suitable for landscape photography. Other factors affect the depth of field in an image, especially the camera's proximity to the point of focus and the lens' focal length.

When we adjust the aperture, we must change either the shutter speed or the ISO—or sometimes both—to keep the overall exposure the same. The reverse is also true: if we change the shutter speed, we must adjust the aperture and/or ISO to balance the exposure.

Often, we want to adjust the exposure for creative reasons. For example, in the following image, I reduced the exposure by increasing the shutter speed but kept the aperture the same. The darker background is also blurred. These two factors help isolate the flower from the background.

Separating the subject from the background using exposure compensation and depth of field. This image could have benefited from slightly more depth to get all the petals of the nearest flower in focus.

Shutter Speed, Motion, and Stability

Changing the shutter speed also changes how the image looks because it influences the perception of motion and stability. A faster shutter speed can freeze a moving subject, while a slower shutter speed can create motion blur, thus conveying a sense of movement in a still image. If the shutter is open for longer while we track a moving object, the background can become blurred while the subject—or parts of it—remains sharp, thus helping separate it from the background.

In some compositions, where static and dynamic elements are present, adjusting the shutter speed with compositional intent is essential. For instance, in the following photo, the longer exposure showed the movement of the clouds, hid the motion of the sea, and made no difference at all to the stillness of the stick. Unlike the photo above, the camera was stable.

ISO and Noise Management

While ISO primarily affects exposure, it also impacts image quality. High ISO settings introduce noise. That usually detracts from, but can sometimes enhance, the feel of an image by adding visual texture. Some people deliberately add grain to a photo to emulate the look of film or to give the illusion of greater sharpness.

However, in low light, managing ISO effectively ensures that compositional elements remain clear and detailed. Furthermore, there have been huge advances over the last few years in noise removal, both in-camera and using development software.

Using exposure compensation to create this high-key image with sufficient depth of field meant increasing the ISO to achieve a shutter speed fast enough to stop the action. Modern cameras can shoot successfully at much higher ISOs. OM-1 Mark II, ISO 10,000, f/8.0, 1/3,200 second, 400 mm.

Metering and Exposure Compensation

To achieve accurate exposures, photographers can rely on different metering modes (e.g., entire frame, center-weighted, spot, etc.). Each evaluates light differently, sampling the light from different-sized areas of the photo, which impacts how the scene is exposed. Often, we want the in-focus element in a photograph to match the correct exposure, but that is not always the case.

Although many use alternative partial-frame metering modes, I don't. I only ever use exposure compensation. That's because, with my mirrorless cameras, I can preview the exposure through the viewfinder, see the histogram, and look for clipped areas in the frame—i.e., white or black parts of the exposure that exceed the sensor's capabilities. Like my example of the flower above, exposure compensation allows adjustments to the camera's metered exposure.

Furthermore, that method ensures that key elements within the composition are exposed for the correct result, and those elements may be elsewhere in the frame other than the area the camera is metering. However, I should add that my camera can tie spot metering to the selected focus point that isn't necessarily in the center of the frame.

Getting It Wrong

In portrait, wildlife, and still-life photography, the interplay between composition and exposure is often considered crucial for emphasizing the subject. As I showed above, a wide aperture creates a shallow depth of field, isolating the subject against a blurred background. Yet an excessively shallow depth of field can also cause a compositional failure by leaving too little of the scene sharp.

Similarly, novice photographers often focus on the wrong part of the image. For example, in landscape photography, they may place their focus point on a subject near the horizon or at infinity, which invariably results in the foreground being out of focus.

Instead, they may have been better off choosing the hyperfocal distance to get the maximum amount of the picture sharp. The hyperfocal distance is the closest point you can focus using any given focal length and aperture combination where infinity is still in focus. Some smartphone apps can calculate this for you, and Photopills is probably the most popular.

Focusing at the hyperfocal distance resulted in this image having front-to-back sharpness.

The Importance of the Zone System

Novice photographers also often forget to choose the exposure that emphasizes the most important factors in the scene. Ansel Adams and Fred Archer devised their Zone System to address this. The Zone System helps us control different brightness, or tonal values, of areas within an image. The system was devised to ensure that light and dark tones are rendered as the photographer desired. In a so-called “correctly exposed” image, the different tones are as shown in this chart.

DxO's Silver Efex in Nik Collection emulates the zone system, helping you identify the areas of an image that are at different brightness.

The Zone System Is for Guidance

We don't have to adhere to the Zone System strictly. We should make our own decisions about how we want the image to be exposed. There is no universal right or wrong—creative exposure is subjective and depends on our personal taste. Like all rules in photography, the values suggested by the Zone System are for guidance. We can use them as a starting point, but we have the creative control to do with them as we like.

For example, when I took the following photo, my eyes could see far more details in the shadows. Moreover, the sky was much brighter than can be seen here. However, that wasn’t what I wanted. Consequently, I adjusted the overall exposure to create the silhouette and make the textures in the clouds stand out. The tonal values don’t match those proposed by Adams and Archer, but it was the result I wanted.

The Right Tone for the Right Feeling

Whether in bold, high-contrast images with stark blacks and pure whites or a narrower range of grays that produce more nuanced and subtle images, choosing the correct exposure settings significantly influences the photograph's mood. That mood is crucial for the image's narrative—the story you are trying to tell with your picture.

Photographers often consider exposure and composition as disconnected elements. However, they are integral to creating an effective image. The effective use of tonality is crucial to the composition. Realizing that composition and exposure are intrinsically linked is paramount to mastering both and, ultimately, photography as a whole. Understanding this relationship is one thing, but putting it into practice requires learning—and that’s only achieved by taking lots of photos and studying each one. It’s hard work, but it’s worth pursuing.

Ivor Rackham's picture

A professional photographer, website developer, and writer, Ivor lives in the North East of England. His main work is training others in photography. He has a special interest in supporting people with their mental well-being. In 2023 he accepted becoming a brand ambassador for the OM System.

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