Be Deliberate With Your Composition

Composition in photography can be challenging. It involves a series of rules that some say are to be followed, others say to be broken, and some say to be bent. What exactly are you looking for in a composition? How do the rules play together? Not wasting space in the frame is a great way to start.

Mark Denney shares several examples of how carefully evaluating a photographic frame can inform how you compose and crop an image. Looking at your composition, either in-camera as you take it or in post-processing for cropping, and asking yourself what adds interest or value and what is wasted space can go far in helping you create compositions.

Denney talks about the importance of determining what the important subjects are in the photo. What is adding visual interest? What is detracting from the strength of the image because it lacks visual interest? Considering these questions as you compose an image helps bring visual balance to the composition.

Denney also talks about “shooting for the crop” to help give you flexibility with your compositions. This is when a photographer composes their image in-camera but then composes it just a little wider. This allows more flexibility in post-processing to work through the final composition.

I found the compositional strategy suggested in the video helpful to keep in mind for my own photography. I also appreciated the additional tips on compositions of reflections and the placement of horizon lines.