Principles of Composition

Digital has made it easy to make hundreds of photos in a day—what I call the National Geographic approach—the idea being that out of hundreds of photos there will be a few accidental gems. We think this is a losing approach for all but the most accomplished photographers. To meet the demands of our editors, we can't depend on accidentally getting a few good pictures. In most cases, we will not have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and go back for more photos before the magazine deadline, so we must be sure to get a few gems the first time. To be successful, we use the techniques employed by masters of art over the centuries to produce works that still wow the public and the critics.

It’s not difficult to make good photographic images. In fact, it’s amazingly intuitive for a mindful observer of life. For many of us, that's a problem. Adults are generally not very mindful. Oh we pay attention in a shallow sort of way but we don't normally immerse ourselves into our environment. But don’t worry, you don’t have to be an enlighenend Zen master to make great images. You only need to practice the same principles employed by the great masters and you will be rewarded with satisfying images too.

A well-designed photograph “works” properly. It does what it is supposed to do; record scenes and events accurately; evoke feelings; and express ideas clearly. If you think of effective visual expresson as your goal—the house you want to build—then good visual design is the craft that makes it possible.

Let’s look at language. When you were younger, you learned the parts of speech, the building blocks of language, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and you learned to combine them into groups of words that other people could understand. Very young children learn to glob words together to express themselves to those in their immediate surrounding but they must learn more effective verbal communication if they want to express themselves clearly to a national audience.

Eventually, we learn that by altering the arrangement of our words and phrases, we can express ourselves in drastically, and pleasingly, different ways. We can even alter the meaning of the same words just altering the pitch or emphasizing specific words or event using pauses effectively. It’s the same with images. Pictorial compositions use specific building blocks that are arranged in a an enormaour number of ways. Because we work in a two-dimensional media to represent a three-dimensional world, we must add perspective (the representation of depth or distance).

As we arrange the building blocks, we are communicating information. What we communicate and how well depends on the blocks we select and the ways we arrange them. Once we recognize an expressive shape, we are better prepared to use it effectively. We may choose to enhance a shape or line just the way we emphasize a word or phrase in speech.

Now that we've discussed the concepts of building blocks, let's consider the basics of constructing expressive visual images. We will begin by discussing the the foundations of visual design.