Composition of the Photograph
Author of text and photos: Goran Katić
When photographing, our main goal is to harmonize our ambient and object observations, and also embellish them. In photography, composition is significant because without it we wouldn’t be able to differentiate pretty apart from unpretty. That’s why there is some legitimacy. Like a story, photograph needs to have its beginning and its end. Composition represents a set of demands which a photograph achieves through picturesqueness and aesthetics. In photography one is essential as well as the other: good technical presentation. By saying this we mean; accurately exposed photograph and balance of everything we use to create a photograph.
There are several elements of photography and those are contour, tone, color, sample, texture and shape, but we can also add, distance and perspective. When it comes to a composition of the photograph be careful of the foreground relation with the medial distance and the background. Photograph is a surface whose every part presents bigger or smaller value. That value depends on projection of some of its parts in our eyes, and is connected with different habits. Because of the habit of reading from left side to the right and/or writing with a right hand, our eye almost mechanically “reads” from left to right.
Value of the surface parts:
Picture #1 If we split the photograph on two halves, half A is always considered more valuable part than half B.
Picture #2 If we split the photograph on two sides, right side will again be a more valuable part then the left one. Lower left corner is considered to be the weakest point in the photograph.
Area of Interest on the Photograph
When viewing the photograph, to stop our eye from wandering all over it, it’s important to harmonize the photograph in such way so we get the middle point or point of interest. Have all directions and tones help the eye find that point – which would have to have everything that’s most important in the object.
Significance of a Cutout on the Photograph
In the moment of shooting it’s important to be concentrated on the object you’re about to capture in your shot. It’s easy to see everything captured right there in the viewfinder. That’s where the first part of the composition starts. If possible, have the object fill the entire negative so, later; you won’t have to crop it. Many photographs become dull just because there is too much of unimportant elements in the frame or the object of interest got lost in the photograph so the photograph lost it’s meaning i.e. story. Good photograph never has two objects of interest. If we make the story complicated, the viewer won’t get the point.
The effect of the photograph will be bigger if we keep it simple; one photograph – one object
Point and angle of Shooting
That is the place of the camera position at the time of shooting. Point and angle of shooting mainly depend on the type of the object. Angle of shooting, or “rakurs” the way it’s called in the film industry, represents optical axis lens direction i.e. tilt of the camera. If playing by the rules, camera should be positioned horizontally; however, we can point it and shoot in any direction: top-down or top-up. These camera positions also shape the photograph. Optical axis direction gives “perspective views” which are divided according to the height of the camera and optical axis direction on the frog, eye and bird perspective.
Accentuation of Important
Every object – whether that is a portrait, item or a part of some engine – should be nicely placed in the surface of the photograph, and somehow all important in it should be accentuated. In the art photography, when wish to specially accentuate something, equal sharpness can only oppose because then the point of interest gets lost.
In many situations backgrounds also oppose, because of their colorfulness and structure the backgrounds attract the eye and reduce the importance of the main object. That’s where the dept of field helps. The role background has in the photograph is only decorative nature; it’s secondary and serves like a supplement to the main object. To attract the eye to the main part of the photograph, here are a few suggestions you can use:
- The lightest parts attract attention unless entire photograph is light. In that case dark parts will attract attention.
- Contrast of the object
- Size of the object/li>
- Shape of the object, e.g. a bowl between the cubes.
- Sharpness of the object
- Color of the object
