Pick a Subject…Any Subject…
One of the more basic things that we have been working on has to do with basic composition of photographs. I’m sure if you’ve had a camera in your hands, you probably have thought of some (if not all) of these tips, but hey, you have to start somewhere!
We have started with the idea that a photographer must have a strong subject in mind when that shutter is clicked. This is, quite often, the difference between a forgettable snapshot and a treasured memory. I know that this is an area that has been difficult for me to work on personally, and it is a challenge to teach a kid the principle as well.
I’ll use the picture to the left as a first example of NOT having a clear subject (click the picture to see larger). Obviously, the picture was taken at a birthday party for my son, and he should have been the subject of the photo. However, it is also obvious that I did not do a very good job of composing the photo to emphasize the subject. There are three people in the photo, all the same size and in relative focus. The two boys certainly compete for attention in the photo, one with a gift and the other with a great expression of excitement on his face. Another problem is the very busy background that is also in sharp focus. All of this takes away from picture, and causes it to lose any impact it might have.
There are many things that can help to clean up a picture. Once the subject of the picture is determined, the photographer must make some compositional choices to make that subject clear and make it stand out within the photo. Here are some suggestions:
- Fill more of the frame with the subject. The larger the subject is in the frame, the easier it is to distinguish from other elements that may be in the photo.
Science Project: Flower - Blur the background. Blurring the background helps the subject stand out, as that subject will be the only thing in the photo that is in relative focus. In any photo, the area that is in the greatest focus will draw the attention of the viewer. This is called selective focus. That is, only a portion of the picture is in focus–it is selectively focused.
- Use elements such as framing or leading lines to draw attention to the subject. Anything that works to separate the subject from the background helps to emphasize its importance. Leading lines can draw the viewers focus through the photograph to the main subject. Framing can accomplish the same thing, pulling the eye of the viewer to the main subject.
The picture to the right uses some of the elements above to try and bring out the subject of the photograph. This project that my son put together this week is a model of a flower, but he went the extra mile and made a small bumble bee out of pipe cleaners to spice up the project. We set the aperture to about 2.0 to have a shallow depth of field, and then cropped tightly to fill the frame with flower. The bee, the main focus of this picture, is in focus, while even the near and far petals of the flower are thrown out of focus. While this photo breaks the rule of thirds (a subject for another post), sometimes rules are made to be broken! Often, at least in my experience it is not uncommon for macro type shots to be more centered in the frame.
Getting a good composition is the start of getting good photographs. It starts before you ever click the shutter. Of course, there is far more to good composition, but we are just learning, right? Stay tuned for more to come…