I can’t think of a better way to kick off blogging from a new home than with a great How2 post from good buddy, Scott Bourne. A long time back he published a post on composition. It’s one of those areas that’s so easy to fine tune in your skill set. Great composition has almost become a trademark of so many of the great photographers like Jerry Ghionis, Bambi Cantrell, Yervant and Roberto Valenzuela, just to name a few. 

So many photographers talk about the challenges with “Uncle Harry”…well, “Uncle Harry” puts everything dead center in every image! Along with understanding exposure, lighting, image manipulation and making your albums tell an incredible story in the final presentation, composition is just one more area of expertise to help you seperate yourself as a professional.

And as Ernst Wildi from my Hasselblad days used to say long before we even talked about the Uncle Harrys of the world, “One of the biggest differences between an amateur and a professional is that amateurs show you ALL of their images”!

Copyright Scott Bourne 2009 – All Rights Reserved 

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS by Nicole Young, Rich Legg & Other iStock Contributors

One of the most common problems facing new photographers – and some of us OLD photographers – is finding a great composition. Like pizza, it’s a matter of taste, but there are some fairly standard agreed-upon guidelines for a good composition.   I want to note these are GUIDELINES, not rules and an expansion of my original five tips. For each of these points you could make an opposite artistic argument. Go there if you must, but if you do, you miss the point of the list. Concentrate on the basics first, then you have earned the right to get fancy and ignore them.

1. Be clear on your subject. What story are you trying to tell with the photo?

2. Draw attention to the subject. This can be done by simply getting closer, by using selective focus, by using color, by lighting just the subject, by framing the subject in a doorway or window, etc.

3. Simplify. Simple is best. Remove anything that doesn’t help you tell the story.

4. When in doubt, leave it out. If there is something in your field of view that is not relevant to the subject or doesn’t somehow support the subject, get rid of it.

5. Check your negative space. Don’t leave too much negative space and when you do have negative space, be sure you use it right. Leave room for the subject in the frame unless you have a specific reason not to.

6. Fill the frame. You can rarely go wrong by filling the frame with the main subject. Many of the best pictures are the simplest ones. You don’t have to add background for the sake of adding background.

7. Check the edges of the frames. Don’t cut off feet or hands of your subject half way. If you want to exclude those appendages, make sure we know you meant to do so. Make a clean crop well above the wrist for instance if you don’t want to include the hands.

8. Check for intruders. Is there something popping into the picture from the side? Is there a tree branch, power line, telephone poll, etc., that creeps into the shot and steals attention from the subject? Re-compose and remove it.

9. Remember POV – Point of View. Shoot up on objects to make them more powerful. Shoot down on subjects to diminish them or make then look less imposing.

10. Use the rule of thirds. Draw a Tic-Tac-Toe board over your picture in your mind. Position the subject at one of the four intersecting corners in the grid.

11. When making portraits, always keep the eyes above the center line in the photo.

12. Strive for balance. Look at the composition and determine if there’s something out of place that tilts the viewer’s attention one way or the other.

13. The eye goes to the brightest part of the scene first. So don’t let anything in the photo other than the main subject be brighter than the subject.

14. Add depth by including strong foreground objects in shots where the background is also important.

15. Shoot vertically to enhance tall objects or to emphasize height. Shoot horizontally to emphasize width.

16. Use patterns, particularly repeating patterns to make pictures more interesting.

17. Use leading lines to attract the viewer’s eye where you want it to go.

18. Use S-curves or shapes as a more relaxed casual way to lead your eye through the composition. A road or a stream are good examples of this approach.

19. Start by shooting at your subject’s eye level. For example, get down low when making a child or animal’s portrait rather than standing over them and shooting down on them.

20. Make sure there is separation between multiple subjects to avoid unsightly merges.

21. Don’t center everything unless there’s a reason.

22. Don’t let the horizon fall dead center in the picture.

23. Don’t let the horizon cut through the head of any human or animal subject.

24. Don’t let the horizon merge with objects that are important to your image and make sure it is level.

25. Right before you make the photo take a second, look up, look down, look all around and make sure there’s nothing you’re missing.

Reading this blog from Scott Bourne, I can’t help but see so many similarities. Yes, it’s outdoor wildlife, but the understanding of the subject, the exposure Scott chose and even the way he composed the final image is no different than the effort a portrait, children’s or wedding photographer would need.

Scott has one sentence that really says it all and points out the common denominator, no matter what your specialty:

“Studying ANY subject, wildlife or not, will help improve your odds of getting a great shot.”

The depth of that statement runs a lot deeper than you might think. As a children’s photographer, for example, doing a Day-in-the-Life shoot, you need to pay attention and follow the mannerisms of the child. You need to pay attention to the lighting, possibly window light, to capture an outstanding image. The child’s expression and intensity when playing with a favorite toy will be critical to defining the decisive moment. Most important of all is being able to allow the child to interact with their environment without any disturbance.

The art of being a great photographer is in understanding the craft, not in the subject matter in which you chose to specialize. And these days, survival and growth are often dependent on the diversity of your skill set! I’ve worked with Scott for a long time and the fun of it all is that he’s made it a point to understand every aspect of photography and he really can shoot just about anything!

Photographing wildlife takes patience, practice and knowledge of your subject. In this case, I was also a little lucky.

I went to central Florida in February – near Palm Beach to photograph the many birds that migrate through and mate in that area. On this occasion, I found this Great blue heron couple (Ardea herodias) displaying some great courtship behavior in a swamp.

To make this shot I had to know the following things…

a) Where the birds were likely to be
b) What time of day they were likely to be there
c) What time of year they began courtship

Studying ANY subject, wildlife or not, will help improve your odds of getting a great shot.

As with ALL wildlife, I set up with the sun directly at my back. There wasn’t much light because the sun had just come up, but there was enough to get a good image.

The birds were high up on top of a tree so I shot from a step ladder to minimize my upward angle. (I always carry a small portable, light, step ladder with me in the field for just such an occasion.)

I made the shot using a Canon 1D MK II N with a 6oo mm F/4 IS lens, mounted on a Wimberley Head, affixed to a Gitzo1325 tripod. The effective focal length (EFL) of the lens was 840mm due to the crop factor caused by the less than full-sized sensor on the 1D MK II N.

I made about 10 images in a span of about 30 seconds before they took off together,but if I went back there today, the conditions might be totally different, calling for a different exposure, but the exposure used here was 1/500th of a second at f/8, ISO 250.  Scott Bourne

Looking for more images and tips from Scott? There are two great places you’ll find him; at PhotoFocus and GoingPro.

You’ll find lots more great information from Scott at www.PhotoFocus.com and don’t forget our joint blog at www.GoingPro2011.com.  Plus, check out new information at www.PWSPI.com.

    Copyright Scott Bourne 2003. All rights reserved.

Photography is all about creating with light. If you don’t have good light – you don’t have a good picture. Understanding, recognizing and finding great light should be something that literally haunts every serious photographer.

Direction – Color and Quality are the three aspects of light you need to understand. Here’s a reminder:

Color – all daylight comes in different colors. At Noon it’s white and at sunset its red or orange. Knowing which color of light you’ll use dictates the mood of the photo.

Quality – specular, broad, soft, high contrast larger the light source softer it is.

So what should you do with this knowledge? Why is it important? We live in a three dimensional world and work in a two dimensional media. For photographers, we define what we see by shadows and highlights and that’s controlled by the direction of light. In a perfect world, we’d always try to match subject to the right kind of light.

For instance, landscapes look great in side light because of direction shows texture because of quality undiffused color red. People on the other hand look better in softer, rounder, more diffuse light. You don’t want harsh specular light to be the sole light on a portrait. When it comes to color of light for a portrait both landscapes and people tend to look better slightly warmer than neutral.

There’s nothing earth-shattering here. Just remember these basics when you’re composing your images. Not only do you need to think about background and subject, you need to think about the direction, color and quality of light.

If you know Steve or have heard him speak, nobody could be more down to earth.  His passion for photography is only topped by his humility.  The best part of the image is that we all know he wasn’t trying to create one of the most recognizable portraits in the history of photography.  It just happened – and, it happened on film, without any manipulation, major retouch work – nothing but a photographer who knew his craft.

So, as you photograph your next job, think about the traits that produced Afghan Girl.   Steve wasn’t trying to do anything except tell a story.  He understands photography cold, so his understanding of  lighting, exposure and composition were completely second nature.  He didn’t have hours in a studio to ponder how he would create one of the greatest portraits of all time.   And that’s the biggest point – when you look for something too hard, it will continue to elude you.   Relax your vision and learn everything you can about photography, hang on to every dream and just keep shooting - your own version of Afghan Girl will be in your portfolio sooner or later!

“The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do. ”

Brian Tracy, Motivational Coach and Author

So,  relax, dream BIG and don’t compromise!