Composition is the easiest technique to use to improve your images, it's also the most overlooked. You should think about composition in every photo you capture. Composition CHOICES can turn a mediocre image into art:

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--> just by moving your camera position, angle, or height...

--> or by changing the way you think about the framing of your image...

--> or by including powerful leading lines...

--> or by having strongly contrasting colors...

--> or by having someone feel your picture with all their senses...

--> or by having a beautiful balance to your image...

--> or by having a luminous glow to your subject...

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any, or all of these types of things can help radically improve the quality and beauty of your image...and each is an example of a photography foundation.

 

Foundations of Photographic Art in Composition: 

these are the main building blocks that permit an ordinary picture to become artistic.

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Mastery of each foundation will help to create photography which is aesthetically beautiful.

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The 11 Foundations:

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1. Lines—leading lines and using triangles, squares, circles which are made up of lines

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2. Texture—It is that quality that makes something visual seem like it could be experienced through senses other than sight: touch, or taste, or sound, or smell

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3. Rhythm—the repetition or alternating of elements, often with defined intervals that creates a sense of movement, and can establish a flow or harmony

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4. Color—hue (tint) and saturation (amount) and luminosity (brightness)

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5. Tone—the contrast between light and dark, the luminosity of the subject...the “pop” of an image, this can also be used to create a “mood” in an image

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6. Space—effective use of positive vs negative space

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7. Balance—the way all the elements are arranged in an image, rule of odds, centered, off-center (rule of thirds), circular

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8. Depth of Field—amount of the picture which is in sharp focus

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9. Perspective—way an image creates a sensation of volume, space, depth, distance, and scale

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10. Point of View—the point of view for your photo: up close, far away, from above, ground level, eye level, mirror/reflection, distorted

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11. Framing—what to include and what not to include in an image to help bring focus to the subject so that it stands out more

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