Beginner's Photography
The Secrets of Great Photographic Composition

These beginner's photography tips will show you the secret of great photographic composition. Digital photography composition is incredibly important to taking an outstanding picture. In beginning digital photography you sometimes feel like you're unsure of how to compose your photos. These tips will help get rid of your doubts and show you what element to look for to improve you photo's composition.

Wonderful pictures aren't usually taken by chance. Most times they come about because the photographer understands composition and has framed the scene before taking the picture. There are a few considerations you must make before taking a picture.

• placement of subject of interest
• simplicity of composition
• shapes, patterns, and lines
• tones and textures
• lighting and contrast
• background, foreground, and camera angle

Let's look at these elements of composition in more detail.

Placement of Subject

Many beginning photographers tend to place the subject of interest smack dap in the center of the frame. This isn't always a bad thing, but if you look at most excellent photography you'll see that they tend to have something in common. The subject of interest isn't in the exact center of the photo. It's off center. Sometimes it's off center just a little bit. Sometimes it's off center quite a lot.

Placing your subject slightly off center adds tension to the photography that makes it more visually interesting. This idea of not placing your subject in the center of the photograph comes from the concept of the rule of thirds.

Simplicity of Composition

The next lesson in beginner's photography is about simplicity. Simplicity is an important part of photo composition. Picking out one image and focusing on it with little distraction makes a picture more visually striking. The viewers eye is drawn to the subject. There's no confusion about what the picture if supposed to capture.

When you take a picture try not to take a picture of a wide scene with lots of things going on at once. Instead, try to focus in on one specific thing in that scene. Make that thing your subject of interest.

Once you've done that experiment with camera angle and background and foreground to see how you can get the best image. Try to shoot the image so that distractions are minimized or even completely eliminated.

Shapes, Lines and Angles

Carefully look at the lines that you can see in the frame. This is a good beginner's photography tip to add more tension to your picture. If there a strong line in your picture try to make it end in the corner of the frame.

Have strong lines cut through your photo diagonally and end in the corner of the frame. It's also good to have many lines in your photo that all converge at one point.

Using shapes and repeating patterns can also make a good visual image.

Tones and Textures

The textures of surfaces can really come out in photographs. Look for images that include objects with different textures. This gives more depth to your photo.

Lighting and Contrast

Use contrasting color and light in your photography to your advantage.

You don't always have to try to get rid of shadows in your pictures. Shadows in phtography add interest and give your photo depth of field. Take advantage of natural light and dark areas in the scene to lead the viewer's eye to the focus of the photograph.

Look at the colors in the scene. Do they work well together? Can they play off of one another a bit. I had a friend who did this very well in her photography all the time. Originally, I took pictures in black and white only, but seeing the pictures of this friend made me want to start photographing in color.

Background, Foreground, and Camera Angle

Here's the final beginner's photography tip. When you're taking a picture you can get so wrapped up in looking at the subject of interest in the picture that you just don't notice the background and foreground at all until after you've taken the picture. I think the foreground tends to get negelected the most.

Move around your subject and try to get rid distractions and add in things that might make the scene more interesting. Just look through your camera and try to frame your shot, before you actually snap the picture. Eventually, you won't need to look through your camera to frame the shot at all. It will became something you do naturally all the time.

Conclusion

Now that you know all these beginner's photography photographic composition rules break them! Rules smules. Who wants to spend their time following a bunch of rules? If you spend too much of your time worrying about composition you won't end up taking any pictures at all.

Learn these rules and even try them out. Then just store them in the back of your head somewhere and go out and take the pictures that look good to you.

Related Articles

The Rule of Thirds--Learning this simple rule of composition will help you improve the look of your photographs.

Photographic Composition--Get some tips on how to use background and foreground to you advantage when you're taking pictures.

Digital Photography Tutorials--If you found these beginner's photography tips useful but still want more information about digital photography check out my tutuorials.