What is Composition?

Composition is what makes or breaks a picture; it is the placement, arrangement or organization of the component or subject/s in a camera frame.

The goal of composition is to create a strong compelling image that makes sense instantly to anyone who views the image. It is about getting the basic underlying structure of a photograph to register on an elementary level in our subconscious mind. Composition captures and holds our attention while directing it within the picture.

Composition and Framing

Composition is an art and it comes naturally to some people, for the rest of us it is an art that can be studied and mastered. It is the arrangement of the different components in a picture in relation to each other. The only way to re-arrange a composition is to change your perspective or view-point by moving your camera along one of the four dimensions, left or right, in or out, up or down, angled left or angled right; the only way to do this is before taking the picture.

Framing on the other hand is pointing the camera, and either zooming in or out. It doesn't have anything to do with the positioning of the different components of a picture. After the picture is taken framing can be changed by cropping.

There are many composition guides and in themselves enough to write a book about, since this article is aimed at the beginner, we will be focusing on the common traditional compositional techniques listed below;

• Simplification & Brevity
• Limiting Focus (Bokeh)
• Rule of Third (Golden Mean)
• Rule of Odds
• Rule of Space
• Geometry and symmetry

 Simplification & Brevity

Photography is a story and like all stories there should be a structure, this structure is the composition, and is made up of the compositional components. 

Brevity a very important concept in photography means showing as much as we need and no more, this means we must learn to compose our story using the least number of component. This involves getting rid of all the distracting components in a picture, and creating a perfect balance of the remainder before pressing the shutter.

Composition has been described as making order out of chaos; in this respect brevity and simplification goes hand in hand.

Simplicity, a large part of composition in photography is making sure that the biggest, most obvious components are properly arranged by keeping them as simple and straightforward as possible.

In conclusion the more components included in a picture the more the clutter, the weaker the picture becomes; whereas the less extraneous content included the

stronger the impact of the picture.

Limiting Focus (Bokeh)

This is a technique in photography whereby everything that is not the subject of the photography is placed out of focus. This is achieved by using a wide aperture lens, usually f2.8 or smaller to get a narrow depth of field. This is also a simplification method which focuses the eyes on the subject since it is the only thing in focus.

Bokeh is the term that describes the blur in the out-of-focus areas of an image and it occurs for parts of the photograph outside the depth of field. It is defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". There is good and bad Bokeh.

Good Bokeh is when the blur around an image in a photograph is pleasing to the eye, while bad Bokeh is when the blur around the image is unpleasant or distracting to the eye. Good or Bad Bokeh is determined by the lens aberrations or lens quality.

Rule of Third (Golden Mean)

The rule of thirds is a compositional rule of thumb in visual arts such as painting, photography and design. The rule states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.

This is based on the fact that the human eye is naturally drawn to a point about two-thirds up a page. Crop your photo so that the main subjects are located along one of the lines or around the intersection points rather than in the center of the picture frame. When photographing people, it is common to line the body up with a vertical line, and having the person's eyes in line with a horizontal one.

The Golden Mean is basically a mathematical ratio.  Mathematicians have argued over who discovered it, Pythagoras or Vitruvius. It is related to the rule of third, in that if we take anyone of the two equally-spaced lines in the rule of third either horizontally or vertically, there is a ratio between the rectangle left on both side, this is to be expected since the lines are drawn equally distanced from each other,  we use this ratio within our picture to get a proportion that has been found extensively in nature, and is also pleasing to the eye.

Another practical way to use the Golden Mean in photography is to find the "Golden Points". 

The Golden Points are places within the picture plane on which to place subjects which will give a more aesthetically pleasing composition, and this is the intersection of the horizontal and vertical lines for the rule of third.

Rule of Odds

The "rule of odds" states that by framing the object of interest with an even number of surrounding objects, it becomes more comforting to the eye, thus creates a feeling of ease and pleasure. It is based on the assumption that humans tend to find visual images that reflect their own preferences/wishes in life more pleasing and attractive.

The "rule of odds" suggests that an odd number of subjects in an image is more interesting than an even number. This means it is better to have three subjects in the frame than two.

Rule of Space

The rule of space is applied to photography where the photographer wants to apply the illusion of movement, this is done by leaving an empty space in the direction the eyes of the subject is looking. The same applies when capturing a runner's photograph, empty space also called white space in photography terms; is added in front of subject rather than behind to indicate movement.

Geometry and symmetry

Related to the rule of odds is the observation that triangles are aesthetically pleasing, and shapes with implied shape within an image is pleasing to the eyes. For example, in a generally recognized attractive face, the mouth and eyes normally fall within the corners of the area of an equilateral triangle.

Golden Nuggets One

These are knowledge that will stand you in good stead in your photography adventure.

It is very important if you are new to digital photography to take things step by step. This means doing your homework, and not running off to the photography store to buy a Digital SLR camera, they are expensive piece of equipment and you might end up spending money that you don’t need to spend, buying something that is not ideal for what you have in mind. You need to know what is meant by pixel, resolution, CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) and CMOS, Shutter lag, Optic and digital zoom, Digital image, JPEG, TIFF, RAW, etc

A trick to getting good quickly in Digital Photography is to get a good compact camera, one that gives you the most option in manually setting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO (might be labelled Sensitivity on a compact) and get to know it very well.

Why, because compact camera (point & shoot) are very portable and versatile, you can have it with you all the time (giving you the opportunity to practice taking more pictures), trying all the different combinations of the available setting and getting to understand what impact they have on your final picture will also help you understand the impact & importance of the three triad of aperture, shutter speed and ISO for when you buy a DSLR.

Composition

Composition means arrangement: the orderly putting together of parts to make a unified whole. There are basic principles that govern the way visual elements behave and interact when you use them in the four borders of a photograph or the visual arts. When we have an understanding of the three composition rules, we will then be able to make our photographs more exciting and effective. The rules are:

- Rule of Third

- Golden Section Rule

- Diagonal Rule

Optical and digital zoom

These are two important terms used in digital photography and you need to know the difference. When choosing a camera it is important to know the lens zoom range, the type of zoom is vital for the quality of the final photos. The OPTICAL zoom range is the one you want to know, when you zoom optically you will get closer to the subject and the maximum details are recorded by the camera. In digital zoom the picture is cropped and enlarged inside the camera electronically. This is not as important as you can get the same effect later using your photo editing software.

Image quality & Picture size

Picture Size and Image Quality have a direct effect on photographs when they are printed. Lots of people often think picture size and image quality are the same thing, and mistakenly go for quantity over quality. Though they are linked, they are very different and should not be overlooked when setting up your camera.
Picture Size is the measurement of your final picture in pixels (the little colour dots that make up your image). The measurement 1600×1200 is 1600 pixels wide and 1200 pixels high, giving a total of 1920000 pixels in your final image.
Image quality determines how the camera processes and stores the final image. A lower quality image will give you more space for storage on your memory card by reducing the number of pixels stored. It does this by removing pixels from the overall image in order to get it to a certain size; these removed pixels can never be restored. So the more the quality of your image the better the quality of your photographs.

Pixels

A digital photo is built from a number of pixels; these are small coloured dots which together forms a grid pattern resulting in the final picture. It is similar to the way an artist creates a painting by combining little bits of paint, thousands or millions of pixels are also combined to create a detailed and seemingly continuous image. The more pixels there are the more details there is in the picture. Note that the quality of the final picture is determined by the way the sensors in the camera process the pixels (image quality) and different cameras do this differently.

CCD and CMOS

CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) and CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor)
These are the two most common image sensors used in digital cameras. The sensors collect and convert light into electrons which is then processed and stored in a digital format on the memory card. Sensors in compact digital cameras are smaller and have more noise than the bigger DSLR sensors, even if the cameras have the same megapixels. CCD sensors are better but they consume much more power than CMOS sensors. The better the sensor the less the noise introduced.

Digital image file types

There are many digital image file types used in today’s digital photography. What are the differences between all the digital image file types and are all of them needed?
The size of a digital file is expressed as Megabyte (MB). The higher number the more space the file needs on your memory card. Different file types takes up different amount of space on your memory card. Another important issue with the different file types is the way they are compressed. A heavy compressed file will loose some image quality, but you save space.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)

This is the most commonly used digital image format. This file format is very compatible with web browsers, image viewers, and image editing software. The images can be compressed by a factor of 10 to 20 compared to the uncompressed original with very little loss in image quality. Most files on the web are saved as JPG.
The advantage is relatively small file size. Most digital camera stores files as JPG. You can choose how much the file should be compressed by the camera. High compression removes information (pixels) from the file. Once removed, the information is lost forever. If you later want to edit the picture in editing software, you might experience quality loss.
As memory card are quite cheap now, I recommend shooting your picture at the maximum of what the camera is capable of doing

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)

This is a flexible image format that normally saves 8 or 16 bits per color – red, green and blue – for a total of 24 or 48 bits. TIFF is a much used file standard in the printing industry because TIFF is capable of handling device-specific color spaces, such as the CMYK.
You keep more information in the file as the compression is less and much better that JPG compression. The size of a TIFF file is bigger compared to a JPG. More advanced digital cameras can store files in TIFF format.

RAW

This is a loss-less compressed file format, and by far best way of saving photos as there is no quality loss. Recently RAW has become one of the most important of the digital image file types and the one most mentioned in both photo magazines and on the web. Storing the image in RAW format means the data from the sensor is stored without any processing from the camera. You need special software to process the data.

Exposure

Exposure will make or break a photograph. I am sure we have all had the experience of taking what we believe will be a great picture, only to have the picture as either too dark (under-exposure) to make anything out, or so light (over-exposure) that all the details are bleached out.
The culprit is our knowledge or lack of, in balancing the three areas that determine Exposure; they are Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO settings.

ISO (International Standards Organisations) – It is the sensitivity that the film or digital sensor has to a given amount of light. The higher the ISO the more sensitive it is so that you can shoot with less available light.

Aperture – This is the size of the hole (or gap) inside the camera lens through which light enters the camera. It works like the iris in the eye – it can be larger when the light level is low to allow more light in, or it can close up very small when it is very bright.
Shutter speed – This is the length of time that light is allowed to come through the aperture onto the sensor that record your picture. It’s like opening and closing the curtains.

Understanding exposure – Achieving the correct exposure has been described like putting a cup under a steady running water tap, how much water we collect is determined by 1, The size of the cup (width). 2, How long we leave it under the tap (time). And 3, The amount of water we want to collect (quantity). We need to ensure we don’t collect too little “underexposure” or too much “overexposure”. To get the right exposure for any photograph we need to develop an understanding of how much light we need (how much our surrounding has), and the proficiency to determine how much aperture (width), shutter speed (time) and ISO setting (quantity) will give us the best light for what we have in mind.