Photography: Rules of composition.

Yes, there is rules! I know, rules can give headache, but let see it in a very simple way without being overloaded by tons of photography rules, but just by using some good photographic examples, you will see, it's very simple to understand simple rules like the rule of third.

If i start by: "In photography, it's very well-known that there is only one rule, and the rule is: there is no rules" do you feel better ?

 

In fact i am not so far from the true with this "saying", you just need to know when or how to apply this "no rules" in photography, and for that, in the beginning, you need some very slight understanding about what happen if you put the subject here in the photograph or there.


Example of a bad picture, bed framing
Bad picture, the subjects are lost in the frame © Patrice Laborda

First at all, you need to full fill the frame as much as possible.

If you shoot a portraiture photograph and the subject is lost in a middle of the frame, you are on the wrong way, even if you want to include some environment to remember the location, for example, look on the left.

 

Here on the left side, you can see a typical example of a very bad framed photograph (to speak only about that, but there is more to speak about).


The subjects, my wife and son, and yes i am just a human, i shoot bad pictures too, so the subjects are totally lost in the frame.

I wanted to shoot also the full porch, i saw in the view finder that it will not be nice from the position i were standing but i told myself "later i will do something in post processing".

NO ! If a photograph is wrong from the beginning, it's just wrong, after in post processing i told myself "what i was thinking about, to do this ... humm ... thing!"


In this case, what i should have chosen to shoot the picture ?

I should have told to my wife to come near me, get more space from the porch (i should had backward a bit more) and shot a tight portrait or even a full portrait of my two loves (my wife and son at around 2-3 meters from the camera) with the porch far in the background even if the porch is a bit blurred, and at the end, i should have gotten, by far, a better photograph.


 You might also be interested with the last entry in the blog:

Photophone: How to do great pictures with a smartphone or a tablet.

How to take great pictures with a smartphone
How to take great pictures with a smartphone?

Nowadays our smartphones have more computer power than a 10 years old desktop computer. Technology is evolving fast and with it, the language acquiring new words like  smartphone or selfie.

We are doing everything with our phone, from a GPS assistant to photograph or record a movie in full 1080p HD, even post processing those images, and i don't even speak about playing 3D games, read some news on internet and so on...

 

At the end, when we compare how we use our phone the most, in percentage, I can say safely that we barely use it to call someone, and this is why i call mine a photophone.

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Comments: 2
  • #1

    Family Photos (Friday, 24 March 2017 08:35)

    Fabulous information! I'm saving this for future reference. Thank you!

  • #2

    indoor wedding photography (Tuesday, 16 January 2018 12:35)

    Great Blog! This is a great information about rules, very helpful and good for Knowledge about photography. Thank you sharing with us.