Tag Archives: balance

The 5 Most Abused Rules of Composition

There are many different rules of composition, and it’s hard to know how to use them all correctly. The fact of the matter is that most people never learn how to use most of them, and that leads to some very misused and abused rules.

We’re going to look at some of the worst. Abused either because people don’t know how to use them, or because they think they do.

Each of the subheadings will link to an article where you can learn more about them.

Rules of Composition

Single Point

In my video course, I argue that this is likely the most abused rule of them all, because people don’t really seem to understand that it exists.

The general rule is as follows:

The further you place a single point of interest from the center of the frame, the more interesting it becomes, but the more justifcation you need for it to be there.

When you place a single point in the center for the frame, such as a person’s face, it needs no justification for being there, but it’s by no means interesting.

Conversely, when you place a single point way off into the corner, then it will portray a very different feeling. Have a look at the photo below. I wanted to display a feeling of loniliness and a great expanse by placing the boat in the corner. This would not have been achieved if the boat was in the center of the frame.

Always consider what you’re trying to portray with you photos, as this will dictate your placement.

Rule of Thirds

This is likely the first rule that you ever learned, as it’s probably the most popular rule. The trouble is, some people treat it as gospel, when in reality, it’s just a good guide.

The rule is as follows:

Divide your frame up into thirds – two equally spaced horizontal and vertical lines. Then align important features in the frame with these lines, and the intersect points.

While it’s a very good rule, and it will help to make your photo more interesting, and add depth, it’s not a rule which should be followed blindly. Just because the rule says so, doesn’t mean that you should.

The truth of the matter is that it all comes down to placement, like it does with a single point. Too close to the center and it’s boring, too close to the edge and it’s too drastic. The rule of thirds is there to guide you to a safe area of the frame, where you’re not stepping on any toes, or making dramatic moves with your composition.

While it’s a great rule, and one that you should all know about, you need to consider what you’re trying to convey with your photo. It can start to look very structured if you follow the rule blindly, and that appears to be quite obvious.

Horizon Placement

All too often people think it’s a good idea to place their horizon in the middle of the frame, when in reality, this is just diving the photo in half, and making it look dull.

Here’s the general rule:

If you were to decide that the top half of the frame is much more interesting than the bottom, then you may want to adjust your composition so that the horizon is low in the frame. And vice versa. Find the interesting part of the frame, and adjust the horizon placement to emphasise this.

It’s a great rule, and one you should absolutely follow, although most people don’t.

Think about it. How interesting is a plain blue sky in your photo, compared to what’s happening on the ground? Not very.

Triangles

Triangle have a strong hold on your photos, although it seems that most people don’t quite understand exactly what they do. It all comes down to the apex (Latin for summit, peak, tip, top, extreme end) of the triangle, and where that’s positioned.

The general rule is as follows:

Lines, paths, and points of interest in a photo, are combined to create a triangle. The positioning and direction of this triangle can change the perceived stability of a photo.

Because a triangle has so much control over the stability, you need to be more careful about using the incorrectly, than not using them at all.

For a photo of a building, you would likely have a flat ground at the bottom, with an apex at the top, which appears to be very stable, but if you rotate the angle of your camera, this will start to appear less and less stable.

If you want to make your photo appear unstable, then this is a really powerful rule to be able to control.

Balance

There is some form of balance in every photo we look at, and it’s up to us to determine whether we want the photo to be balanced, or unbalanced.

Here is the general rule:

Balance is at the base of every composition; it determines whether the photo is pleasing and harmonious to look at, or rather uncomfortable and unresolved. It all comes down to visual weight and placement, which decides whether the left side is heavier than the right, or vice versa.

I won’t go into too much detail about balance, because you can read all about it here, but the general gist is that we look at a photo like a weighing scale. If there’s too much going on, on the left, then the photo is unbalanced to the left. Whether we want the photo be balanced or not us up to us, but it pays to know why you may or may not want it to be.

A balanced photo is pleasing and harmonious, and unbalanced photo is uncomfortable and unresolved. Which do you want your photo to be, and more importantly, why?

The more aware you are of the effects of balance on your photos, the better your photography will be, so it pays to think about how you want to portray your image before you pick up your camera. Degrees of balance is at the heart of every photo and can’t be ignored so use it wisely, and remember, that any technique, if used to excess, is going to lose its worth.

Why You Should Never Use Spot Color

Ok, so I’m going to get some bad feedback for this post, but please, bear with me. I only thought to write this post when I found that it’s a bigger problem than I thought, after posting my 10 commandments of photography, one of which was ‘thou shalt never use spot color’, and I got a lot of feedback that people liked using it. Hopefully this post should help to clear up why you shouldn’t use it. Basically ever.

Here is my belief system when it comes to any artform that requires interpretation: If you have to explain it, it doesn’t work. I could tell you my favourite joke, but if I have to explain the punchline for you, then it’s not funny. You could take what you deem to be a good photo, but if you have to use spot color to draw the readers attention where you want it, then it’s clearly not doing the job it’s supposed to.

The main thing that spot color does in photography is to draw your attention towards certain parts of a photo, without asking the question, why? It’s a simple question, which is all too often ignored. What makes that part of the photo so important.

How many of you have seen spot color used in something like prom photos? I know I have. It’s usually on something stupid like a flower, or a handkerchief. This draws us towards the handkerchief, but raises a very important question at the same time, what’s so important about the handkerchief? Nothing, that’s what. It was just a nice bit of color in the photo, that the photographer thought would stand out nicely. The problem is though, it’s drawing us away from the important part of the photo, which is the subject’s themselves.

Ok, so we have two problems so far, by using spot color, we’re explaining where the viewer should be looking, and then we’re often sending them in the wrong direction. Just one of these problems is bad enough, but what else is wrong with spot color? Well, this takes me back to my original point; you’re explaining the photo. Either to a person who doesn’t understand it enough to get it, or because you’re worried that people won’t get the photo, because it’s not a very good point. I’ll get to all of this in the next section.

Finally, part of the reason that people do it is because they think it just looks nice. I do not, but I’m not here to argue about personal taste. All I suggest is that you look at the work of the photographers you admire the most, and see how much they use it.

Spot Color in Use

Here’s a photo that I took the other day, where I’ve used a little photoshop to hide the camera, you can check out the article here. There is no use of spot color, because this works well as a photo. You look exactly where I want you to look. Firstly by looking at the face (eyes contain a large amount of visual weight), and then the hands, and then at the arms, working your way in and our of the photos down the diagonal lines.

Now lets start playing with spot color. Lets say for some reason that you want to focus the attention on the face, it might make sene to spot color the face and have everything else black and white. I see no justification for this photo to be in black and white, but alas, lets do it anyway. Doesn’t it look pretty #sarcasm?

You’re basically telling the viewer that you want them to look at the face. The problem is that they were already going to look at the face, now you’re telling them not to look anywhere else as much. I could do it for anything in the photo, the picture frames perhaps? (ps. points for noticing my grandma swearing at the camera in one of the photos). The point is that a lot of time this is used, it sends people looking in the wrong direction.

I’ve seen some bad spot color in my time, thanks to sites like YANAP, but lets not get too carried away. A much more reasonable use of spot color that you would see with a photo like this would be to have one side of the mirror color, and the other side black and white, like in the photo below. But what is this telling us? Have a look and then scroll down for my thoughts below.

I can imagine a photo like this having a caption not too dissimilar to ‘reaching into the past’. That’s the gist of the feel of the photo with the black and white. But think about it, what do you think when it’s in color? What if I were to change my facial expression to express a certain emotion, such as regret? Would you not feel the same without the use of spot color? Is spot color necessary? Or is it just an excuse to make something out of nothing, in post?

Lets say you’re worried about someone seeing a poing you’re trying to make, so you want to make it clearer. Take my photo below for example, there’s a pretty clear juxtaposition going on. It’s actually two men sitting in the heat in Croatia, putting crimpers on wristbands for a festival, while watching ‘The Wire’, but that’s not what it looks like. It’s two potentially naked men sitting under a giant heart to most viewers.

Theres a chance that you may not see the juxtaposition in your own photos right away, so to make it obvious for readers, you slap on a bit of spot color to really make it stand out. The photo has gone from subtle and understated, to downright obvious. By explaining how the photo works, it no longer works, as all the charm is removed from the photo.

Whether you’re using spot color for ‘artistic’ purposes, or to help direct your viewers, you always have to ask yourself why?

Lets talk about artistic purposes for a bit. I get that some people don’t use it because they want to help direct the viewer’s attention, but rather because they think it looks nice. I’m not going to argue about personal taste, but I will talk about the side effects. By using spot color, you’re not only changing the color of the photo, but you’re directing the viewer without even realising it (most of the time), and usually without reason.

Perhaps you’re familiar with how you’re directing the viewer, and you like the spot color, and you like how it makes the photo stand out. I’m not going to tell you that you should never do it, because my opinion isn’t more important than yours, but I feel that it’s important that you understand composition first, by researching eye-lines, balance, visual weight, single point (very important for spot color users), and depth. If after all of that, you think that spot color is still necessary, then I have nothing else to say to you. Use it and enjoy it.

Now, I’m aware, that I’m probably upsetting a lot of photographers who have read this post, and likely not made it this far before commenting. If you do have something to say, positive or negative, I want to make sure you’ve read the whole thing first. If you leave a comment here, or on the fan page, include the word beer in the comment, so I know whether to take you seriously or not.

A Beginner’s Guide to Composition

Composition is a funny old thing, because it’s common knowledge that learning composition will help your photography, but it’s also something you should never really pay too much consideration too. I always feel that it’s best to teach people composition under the guidance that it’s training a person’s eyes to look at a potential photo in a different way. You should never just blindly follow the ‘rules’, but you can use your new knowledge to shape your photos into something which is much more pleasing to the eye.

Rule of Thirds

This is probably the first compositional rule that any photographer comes across, and that’s for a very good reason – it’s simple and it works. The basic premise is that you divide your camera’s frame up into thirds and plant key objects in these lines, and the composition will work better. This often works really well and if you’ve not learnt much about photography yet – it’s a great way of dramatically improving your photos and make them more interesting. The idea is that the viewer gets to see more than just the subject and is free to, and encouraged, to explore the photo themselves. There are more basic elements of composition to study, but this is great for trying out and getting to grips with compostion.

Here is the full tutorial on the Rule of Thirds.

Visual Weight

Visual weight is different to size or weight as we know it, and it’s largely down to different elements, such as human eyes and writing. When you can understand visual weight a lot more, you’ll start to understand how people look at photos, and how you can position certain elements in a frame to direct the viewers attention. It’s not so much a tool, or a rule, as it is an understanding.

Here is the full tutorial on Visual Weight.

Balance

Balance in a photo has a big affect on how we feel when we look at the photo, as an unbalanced photo can make us feel uneasy, where as a balanced photo, will make us feel more relaxed. It really doesn’t matter whether you choose to make the photo balanced or unbalanced, but you should understand why you’ve chosen one or the other, and have reasons to justify this choice. Again, it’s one of those situations where the more you know, the easier it will be to produce the desired effect.

Here is the full tutorial on Balance.

Eye-Lines

If you take photos of people, then you take photos with eye lines, so it’s important to understand the affect that they have over how we view photos. Seeing as you’re definitely following every tutorial I’ve provided in this guide, you will have a good understanding of visual weight already, so you should understand the power that having a face (and eyes) in a photo has on it. But there’s much more to it than that. Eye-lines have the ability to focus our attention on another part of the photo, as well as producing tension and other photographic elements. Although they’re not physical lines, they can be used as such to produce different elements, such as triangles and vertical lines.

Here is the full tutorial on Looking & Interest.

Triangles

Speaking of triangles, lets have a look at them next. Triangles are in almost everything we see, in one way or another, it’s just a case of distinguishing them and knowing what to do with them. They make great compositional tools as they’re easy to make, manipulate, and are remarkably common. Triangles are a great way of combining different compositional techniques such as lines and paths and using them to create a more interesting part of a photograph, but the best part about using a triangle is their ability to make a photo feel stable or unstable.

The majority of your photos will have three distinguishable points of interest, so it’s just a case of identifying these, and linking them together in a way that makes sense.

Click here for the full tutorial.

A Beginners Guide to Composition

Single Point

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we should really look at what a single point does to a photo, because there’s actually much more to it than meets the eye. When you’re working with a single point of interest in a photo, it’s one of the most basic forms of composition available, so quite a common occurrence and it pays to know what to do with it. A single point can provide interest to an otherwise plain photo, and they’re usually fairly small and contrasting to the rest of the photo. A photo doesn’t need to have any points of interest to be successful though, just have a look at the most expensive photo in the world as an example.

Here’s the full article.

Horizons

When a frame is being divided by a single, dominant line, it’s more often than not, a horizon, as they’re fairly common in outdoor photography, particularly landscapes. If the photo is of nothing particularly interesting, then usually this line becomes the dominant part of the photo for the way in which it separates the frame. Exactly where you place the horizon in a frame can have a huge affect on the image; it’s all about which part of the photo is the most interesting, and how you want to make your viewer feel with the divide.

Frame Within a Frame

Frames are a great way of using a photographic element to lead the viewers eyes into the frame to focus them on a particular point, and the sense of repetition that they can provide, produce depth and a path for the eyes to explore. A photo of a scene with a foreground feature makes for much more interesting build up to the main part of a photo and can, in some cases, carry equal weight to the rest of the photo.

Click here to read the full tutorial.

Dynamic Tension

Dynamic tension is a way of using the energy and movement available in various features of the frame, to draw the eyes out of the picture in contrasting directions. We’ve already looked at a variety of different lines that you can use in a photo to make it more interesting, but dynamic tension takes these lines and adds varying degrees of contrast between them, making them much more interesting. The simplest and most obvious photo that I have that demonstrates dynamic tension is the one below – the lines move out from the center of the photo to edge of the photo.

This is where composition can start to get a little bit more advanced, but tends to lead to more interesting photography, as you take the knowledge that you’ve already learned, and use it to create photos with more depth.

Depth

Speaking of depth, here’s some useful tutorials to produce depth in your photos. It’s another page like this, with links to the relevant articles, but if you’ve got the time, and you want to learn more, then it’s really worth checking out.

When we take a photo with our cameras, we turn a 3D image into just 2D, and that can cause problems when you’re trying to display depth. It has its advantages and disadvantages, depending on what you’re trying to convey with your photo, but ultimately it holds you back when you’re trying to add depth to a photo.

Click here to check out the full article.

A Beginner’s Guide To Photography

I’ve been writing on this site for a while now, and I’ve put together a lot of good content, but the trouble is that a lot of it can be hard to find, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. This post will walk you though everything that a beginner in photography should learn, and in the order that they’re supposed to learn it. Welcome to my 100th post.

You should know that there is now a video version of this post, and it can be viewed here.

Exposure

The most basic and essential part of photography is exposure. Learning how exposure works will help you to take control of your camera, and take better photos. As you start to learn what shutter speed, aperture and ISO does, you’ll learn about the other effects that each have on your photos, which can produce creative results. If you only have time to learn one aspect of photography, then this is it, as you’ll start to move away from full auto or program modes, and learn how to use your camera properly.

Aperture

If we cover exposure in the order that the light enters the camera, then the aperture always comes first. The linked article will explain aperture in much more detail, but to put it into layman’s terms, the aperture is very simliar to the pupil of your eye – the wider it is, the more light it will let in. There are side effects to using certain apertures, namely depth of field, but we’ll get to that in a post further down the page. I found exposure much more complicated before I learnt the aperture scale, so try to make sure that you memorise it, and understand the f-stop scale, so that you can use the knowledge to take better photos in the future.

The scale is as follows: f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22.

Here is the full tutorial on Aperture.

Shutter Speed

After aperture, comes shutter speed. It will effectively take the amount of light that the lens has let though, and then only use a fraction of a second’s worth (usually), depending on the lighting situation. Different speeds can have different uses. You would want to use a longer speed of around 30 seconds for night photography on a tripod, but you may want a speed of around 1/1000 of a second if you’re shooting a fast moving subject. It all depends on what you’re shooting and how much light you have available. Shutter speed was the first thing I learnt when I got my SLR because I wanted to be able to freeze motion and remove any potential blur. Looking back though, I wish I’d learnt aperture first.

Here is the full tutorial on Shutter Speed.

ISO

Once you’ve decided how much light you’re going to let through to the sensor, it’s then time to decide how much more you need. This may sound confusing, because surely you let in as much light as you need in the first place, right? Wrong. The problem is that you have to be able to change your aperture and shutter speed to suit your shooting situation if you want to get good, and unblurred results, but unfortunately this doesn’t always provide you with enough light. This is when you can then decide to increase your ISO to make the camera more sensitive to the light. Watch out though, because the higher the ISO, the more grain the camera will produce. More about that in the full post though.

Here is the full tutorial on ISO.

Understanding Your Camera

Metering Modes

Rather awkwardly for beginners, exposure isn’t as simple as learning about aperture, shutter speed and ISO, you also have to learn about how your camera looks at light. There are different metering modes, that can be used for different lighting situations, which will better instruct your camera how your want it to expose. This is especially important if you’re not shooting on manual because you leave part of the exposure up to the camera. By using various metering modes such as ‘spot metering’ you can completely change the amount of light going into the camera. Understanding this may just be the key to understanding why your photos are coming out underexposed.

Here is the full tutorial on Metering Modes.

Depth of Field

When you’re shooting in low light, you invariably have to widen your aperture to allow enough light into the lens, but this has one rather major side effect – shallow depth of field. This can be used very creatively, often to excess, but it’s not all good. There are many situations, such as group photos, where you’ll want to have a narrower aperture so that you can get everyone in focus. This tutorial will walk you though everything you need to know about choosing the right aperture for the right situation.

Here is the full tutorial on Depth of Field.

White Balance

White balance is something I wish I’d learnt more about much sooner than I did, because I look back on some photos now and wonder what I was thinking. The white balance changes the colour cast of the entire photo, and is responsible for the warmth of a photo. It is effectively shifting the colour from blue to orange, from cold to warm, and it does so depending on which balance you choose. Auto white balance doesn’t tend to do a particularly good job, particularly with tungsten light, so the sooner you learn how to control it yourself, the more accurate your photos will look.

Here is the full tutorial on White Balance.

Focal Length

This was actually the first tutorial that I wrote, because at the time, it wasn’t something I understood too well. Have you ever wondered what the millimeter on your lens actually means? Or why people use longer focal lengths for portraits? It’s all discussed in this tutorial, as the focal length affects more than just the zoom, it changes the perspective too. I also cover which focal length you would use in certain situations, as well as their possible side effects. It’s really a worthwhile read and one of my favourite tutorials to date.

Here is the full tutorial on Focal Length.

Crop Factor

A lot of you may not realise it, but unless you spend about $3000 on your camera, then you’re more than likely going to be shooting on a crop sensor. That basically means that your sensor is smaller than professional SLR cameras, and that basically crops the image. This has a range of effects on your photos, as it’ll crop the image to a narrower viewing angle, and will influence your choice of lens purchases in the future. This tutorial is a must for any beginner photographer who wants to understand their camera more.

Here is the full tutorial on the Crop Factor.

The Nifty Fifty

What can I say about the nifty fifty? What’s not to love? For those of you that don’t know, when I talk about the nifty fifty, I’m talking about the 50mm f/1.8 prime lens that can be picked up very cheap for most digital SLRs. It’s a great introduction to buying better quality lenses, and an excellent way of getting to grips with aperture. The article linked is a review and a guide, and I wrote it because I recommend this lens as the first upgrade that every beginner photographer should make. It’s easy to use, and for the price, will yield some excellent results.

Here is the full tutorial on the 50mm f/1.8.

Composition

It’s important to understand exposure, but if you can’t get to grips with basic composition, then you’ll struggle to take really good photos. I’m not saying that good photos always include compositional rules, because that’s often far from true, but it helps to learn these rules so that you can forget them in the future. That may sound stupid, but these rules are really only guides, and the more you know about them, the better your understanding will be of how a photo works.

Rule of Thirds

This is probably the first compositional rule that any photographer comes across, and that’s for a very good reason – it’s simple and it works. The basic premise is that you divide your camera’s frame up into thirds and plant key objects in these lines, and the composition will work better. This often works really well and if you’ve not learnt much about photography yet – it’s a great way of dramatically improving your photos and making them more interesting. The idea is that the viewer gets to see more than just the subject and is free to, and encouraged, to explore the photo themselves.

Here is the full tutorial on the Rule of Thirds.

Visual Weight

Visual weigh is different to size or weight as we know it, and it’s largely down to different elements, such as human eyes and writing. When you can understand visual weight a lot more, you’ll start to understand how people look at photos, and how you can position certain elements in a frame to direct the viewers attention. It’s no so much a tool, or a rule, as it is an understanding.
Here is the full tutorial on Visual Weight.

Balance

Here is the full tutorial on Balance.

This was my 100th tutorial today, so I hope you’ve gotten something out of it, I know I’ve gotten a lot out of writing them. If you have any questions, please come over to Facebook and I’ll be happy to help. Thanks, Josh.

10 Ways to Critique Your Photos to Improve Your Photography

Introduction

I get asked to critique photos all the time now, and I’m happy to do it, but I often feel that people’s photography would dramatically improve if they could see for themselves where they’re going wrong. Small things that I would do differently can make a big difference to the end result. The sooner you learn to critique for yourself, the better, as it means that you’ll be able to study your photos as you’re taking them instead of getting home and wishing you could go back and retake them.

If you would like your photo critiqued, click here.

Where is the Visual Weight?

This is the first thing you’ll notice when you look at the photo. Ask yourself, where do your eyes immediately go? Where do you want the eyes to go? If you read my post on visual weight, you’ll have a good understanding of how to use if effectively, but if not, there’s a few elements that you should consider.

I really enjoy taking photos of models as its a relaxing, fun and a great way to play around with some new tricks you’ve picked up, but the important question to ask yourself is whether the photo would still be good without the beauty of the model being a large part of the visual weight? If the answer is no, then you need to consider what is good about the photo? The lighting? Your technique? Or are you just relying on your model to make it a good photo?

If you’re trying to direct the viewers attention to a certain part of the photo, but the first thing you look at is something else, such as writing, or a person’s eyes, then you need to recompose your shot. The sooner you learn to think like this, the better, as you’ll start to be able to fix your photos as you’re taking them and you won’t be left wishing you could go back and reshoot.

Are There Any Distracting Elements?

Whatever isn’t adding to the photo, is taking away from the photo. That’s my rule and it’s something that I carefully consider whenever I take a photo as it’s a very important part to the composition. If there’s a branch leaning into the photo, or a dark shadow covering part of your scene, then they’ll likely be taking away from the overall effect of your photo.

Another popular problem I see when you have lines that lead out of the photo, but don’t lead to anything. This is good when you’re trying to convey a feeling of dynamic tension, but the most popular instance of this is when an limb doesn’t quite fit into the photo, when it really should do. Unless there’s a good reason for a body part to into a photo unfinished, I like to include it. Check out the photo below to see what I mean.

Is the Exposure/Metering Correct?

Sometimes when you’re shooting on the wrong metering mode, you can end up with poor results as the camera doesn’t know how to correct the exposure. Most of the time this happens, your camera is left on evaluative when it should really be on spot mode so that it can meter for the right part of the photo (often the subject), and not the whole thing. If your metering is fine, but it’s still coming out too light or dark, then you know what you have to do. “I’ll fix it in post” are the words of a bad photographer. Get it right in the camera.

Would it Look Better Through a Different Focal Length?

There’s a lot more to focal length than meets the eye, it’s not just about how close the subject appears. If you don’t understand exactly what it is, then I suggest that you click on the link in the previous sentence, as there’s a lot to know. The main difference that the focal length can do is change the perspective of the photo – the longer lengths appear to push everything in the scene much closer together.

Have a look at the example below to see what I mean. You’ll often see portraits are shot at longer lengths because this compressing effect is flattering and isolates the subject from the camera, making the shot feel more natural. When you understand the effect that different lengths have, you can best decide what would look best for your photo.

What is the Background Doing?

Every pixel counts. Whether it’s your background, your foreground, or your subject, a pixel is a pixel and you should do whatever you can to make sure that each of them counts. Have a look at this link to see what you can do to make your backgrounds more interesting. This relates heavily to visual weight and distracting elements, as it’s important to consider what makes your photo great? This is why I don’t like shooting on a white background as you limit what you can do with the photo to make it more interesting.

How is the Composition & Balance?

There are plenty of composition techniques that you can follow to improve your photos, just make sure that you don’t follow them blindly. The rule of thirds is a great way to take photos, but don’t do it for the sake of it, it needs to work for your photo. There’s plenty of times that a centered photo will work the best, or even slightly off center – it all depends on the feeling that you would like to produce. For most instances a balanced photo is going to work best, so study the visual weights and make sure that you have them placed around the photo so that they weigh each other out. If you want your photo to be unbalanced then you know what you have to do.

Does the Photo Require Post Production?

More often then not when I take photo, the answer is no, but that’s only true to a certain extent. The photo is usually good enough to stand up on its own without post production, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t improve the photo if I do it. My photo below went up on the Facebook page with no post production, but that’s because I wanted to demonstrate that it doesn’t really need it, I will still end up putting a few finishing touches onto it though.

If your photo needs post production purely because your technique is poor then it’s best to fix it in the camera. Some people seem to think that the computer can fix most problems, but there’s actually a very real limit to what you can do. The photo below was a 30 second exposure and the only light source was a £3 torch – if you would like to see more photos like this, then come check out our Facebook.

Is the Color Accurate?

When people take photos indoors without the flash on, the white balance almost always comes out wrong as the camera struggles to recognise the tungsten light. This makes the photo appear orange and unnatural, and if you’re not shooting in RAW, then you’ll want to fix it in the camera or you’ll be a bit stuck with options for fixing it later on. On top of this, you should consider whether the photo would suit being in black and white or whether you’ve turned it black and white for the sake of making it look arty?

When I’m shooting in black and white, I’m actually shooting in colour with the intention to turn it black and white later, but the difference is it changes the way I’m shooting. Black and white relies heavily on shape, form and texture to work as these are brought out in the desaturation of colour. Ask yourself if your B+W photo has this or whether you’re doing it to try and make it look good. This is another example of misguided visual weight.

Does the Depth of Field Suit the Photo?

I recommend the 50mm f/1.8 to people because of the wide aperture and overall quality, but the problem that often occurs afterwards is that you start to see a lot of photos with the aperture wide open. Shallow DoF for shallow DoF’s sake doesn’t do you any favours and while you may look at it now and think it looks good, you’ll look back in a year’s time and cringe.

If you know what you’re doing with it, it can work really well like in the photo below. This was set to f/1.4 (the widest aperture I have), but I focused on the model’s eyes so the whole photo appeared to be in much better focus. If you’re stuck with a wide aperture in a low light condition, but the DoF doesn’t suit your photo, then raise your ISO or use an off camera flash.

Is The Photo Cliche?

We all see a lot of cliche photography out there, and we’ve probably all been guilty of it at some point in our lives, but it’s best to try and avoid it. I find that the majority of cliche photos come about from a lack of photographic inspiration, which leads us to taking photos of our pets, flowers or sunsets, or putting a garish border on our photos.

If you have to implement ’cool’ photo effects from your computer, then chances are that you’re not trying hard enough with your photography. Often when I’m meeting with a model, I wonder where I’m going to shoot, but if you put your mind to it, it’s not that hard to come up with somewhere more interesting than your garden. The sooner you challenge your photography, the better it will become.

I hope you’ve learned a thing or two, and as always, come on over to our Facebook page for discussions, photos and advice.

How to Choose Horizon Placement in Composition

Why Horizons

When a frame is being divided by a single, dominant line, it’s more often than not, a Horizon, as they’re fairly common in outdoor photography, particularly landscapes. If the photo is of nothing particularly interesting, then usually this line becomes be the dominant part of the photo for the way in which it separates the frame.

Where to Place the Horizon and Why?

Firstly, I think it’s important to realise where you probably don’t want to place the line, and that’s directly in the middle of the frame. That’s not to say that you should definitely not do it, but it does have a tendency to divide the photo in half and create an uneven photo, with the contrast between the two halves making it look more like two separate photos. Exactly where you place the horizon is completely up to you, but it helps to remember that if a feature of the photo does nothing to improve it, then it has no place in the photo to begin with. Here’s a photo where the horizon has divided the frame in two. Notice that it doesn’t really favour either half.

If you take the horizon and place it slightly lower in the frame, you regain a feeling of stability, which balances out the photo better. You also remove the feeling of division and the whole photo starts to come together as a single image, made up of multiple elements, rather then just two photos stuck together. Have a look at the photo below to see what I mean.

If you were to decide that the top half of the frame was much more interesting than the bottom, then you may want to adjust your composition so that the horizon is a lot lower in the frame. The photo below was taken from a tower in London on a rainy day, with empahsis on the sky. The cityscape adds an interesing texture to photo, but holds much less visual weight. It serves to make the man made city look small in comparison to the powerful sky and weather. This is one of the many interesting, extra feelings which can be evoked when you consider the importance of different aspects of a photo, and asjust your composition accordingly.

The photo below was taken directly after the photo above and focuses largely on the ground, rather than the sky. This photo contrasts greatly with the one above because it no longer evokes the same feelings, and instead focuses more on the colour and lines in the city. Your eyes are naturally drawn up the photo from the colour of the trees and houses at the bottom of the frame to the sharp and jagged nature of the buildings by the sky at the top. An equally interesting photo, but for different reasons, all because of the decisions made over the placement of the horizon. Importantly though, you’ll see that both images are stronger than the original image which cut the photo in half.

If you want to include both the sky and the ground, but don’t want to cut the photo in half then I recommend changing the orientation to portrait. Again, you’re going to probably want to avoid placing the horizon in the middle of the frame, but the decision is up to you. I personally feel that the composition in the photo below is stronger than any of the photos above as it includes the most interesting parts of each photo. The weather had changed slightly between photos, meaning that there was less uninteresting sky in the photo, and that certainly helped towards finding the perfect balance between sky and ground. It’s all about thinking it through and experimenting with what works for you.

High Horizon

Now that we’ve discovered why you may want to include a high or a low horizon, let’s have a look at some examples. The high horizon in this photo was an obvious choice as the sky was particularly plain and uninteresting during the evening in which I took this photo. Realising this, I made a special effort to find somewhere that I could include the foreground a little bit more to strengthen my photo. I found these strong and jagged rocks, which contrasted nicely with the sky, while blending in with the colour of the photo.

Below is an extreme example of a high horizon and I chose to include it because it focused the interest onto the subject and foreground below. It made it look as if the visual weight of the subject forces the camera down, while at the same time, kept the photo stable by remaining straight across the top of the frame. There’s a lot going on in the lower half of this photo and the inclusion of the sky would have distracted from this.

Low Horizon

Photos of clouds from below can be pretty boring and rely heavily on being ‘pretty’ for getting attention, but when you raise your angle, the clouds rely more on their shape and form to attract viewers. Because I had a higher vantage point and shape of the clouds were particularly interesting, I wanted to include as much of them as possible and this meant using a lower horizon. I included just enough of the ground to make the colour interesting and complimentary to the colour of the sky, while focusing most of the viewers attention towards the subject, which were the clouds.

This is an example of a very low horizon this time, and I chose to take the photo this way, not because I wanted to emphasis the rather uninteresting sky, but because I wanted to focus on the dominance of the building. With the horizon that low, the feeling of balance is lost and that draws your attention towards the bold building which stands on top of it. By removing many other potential features from the frame, you focus the attention onto one specific point – the building.