What Is Composition? A Photographer’s Guide

Composition in Photography, which teaches you how to compose photos that are as effective as possible. In this part of the guide, I’ll define composition and explain why it’s such a powerful tool for taking better photos. What Is Composition? A Photographer’s Guide

The Definition of Composition

Each time you take a photo, you end up making conscious decisions about what items to include or exclude. You also decide how to arrange the objects that are in your frame. So, what is composition? It is simply the arrangement of the elements in your photo.

I know that plenty of people have more complex definitions of composition, but it strikes me that they’re only making things more confusing. In the end, everything you hear about composition boils down to the arrangement of the elements in your photo – and how that arrangement makes a photo succeed or fail.

Of course, capturing a good composition is far from easy. But that’s all the more reason to keep things simple when you can. If you’re struggling on where to even start when composing a photo, think back to the basics. Your photo has things in it; your job is to arrange them.

The Strongest Way of Seeing

The next question is how to arrange the elements in your photo effectively – and the answer is to arrange them in a way that brings out meaning.

For example, picture an image in your head. A shadow is no longer just a shadow. It’s a line that leads to a vase of flowers; the vase is the same color as a clock on the wall; the hands on the clock point back to the shadow.

Doesn’t that sound like a deliberate photo? With just two tools – lines and colors – the (hypothetical) photographer in this case has managed to thread together different objects and give them more meaning.

Control

Photographers tend to forget that they have tremendous control over the size and placement of the different objects in an image. And no, I’m not talking about moving around your subject in Photoshop after the fact. I’m not even talking about moving things around in a studio where you have full control over your photo.

Next Steps

Now that you have an idea of what composition is and why it’s so powerful in a camera, it’s time to look at the specific tools at your disposal to help compose better photos. So, click below to go to Chapter 3: Elements of Composition.

If you have any questions or feedback, please post your comments in the comments section below.

You can see our equipment here