More about Composition

Composition is one of the elements that scared me the most when I first started painting.  I did not have a handle on what made a composition ‘good’.  But it’s true that the more you do the better you get and composing my photos is becoming second nature.  I look for something on which to ‘hang’ the composition. My first image (click on images to enlarge them) has some interest.  The zigzag path that leads from bottom left (NEVER from the corner of the image) leads the eye in, then across and back again.  However, the eye does all that work for little reward as there is nothing of particular interest at the end of the line.

The next image has a great sky, interesting lines in the mountains, depth from front to back.  But take out the boaters in the foreground, or even more, blot out the branches upper right,and the image has far less impact.  The boaters provide necessary scale and the branches put even more distance from front to back in the image and keep the eye within the image frame.

The next image would be pretty without the bench, but would not hold anyone’s attention.  Standing behind the bench, showing the view  one would have if sitting there, makes the image more arresting, makes you wanna kinda sit there and take it in.

My last image has some leading lines, some scale but I found it ‘meh’, not so interesting.  So I zoomed way in, onto those boats barely visible in the background.

Sometimes I get a good composition well framed.  When I don’t I look within the photo; sometimes it just needs a focus and some zooming and cropping to reposition the elements.

All photos taken in Snowdonia region of north Wales.

Cee’s Compose Yourself challenge: Landscapes