Chapter 8 - Organising the picture

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with composing the image of the subject as a picture focusing on recognizing and exploiting visual features of scenes and framing them up in the strongest possible way. The ability to know when all the visual elements look right and “hold together” in a way that gives an outstanding visual result is very essential. Picture structuring is very subjective—open to individual style and original interpretation—so there are strong arguments for not having rules of composition. However, long-established guidelines are still very valid and often used to make successful pictures. The basic visual qualities are shape; texture, pattern, form, and color and tone values. Movement, content and meaning is also essential. Meaning can be simple or highly complex: it is determined by content and how this content has been photographed. A bold shape or outline is one of the strongest ways of singling out an object or person, giving it or them a sense of separation from their environment. This kind of separation can be done dramatically using a silhouette or a shadow. Picture composition must be done looking through the camera, because this brings in all kinds of other influences. One must be able to see and structure pictures within the frame of the viewfinder and give due thought to balance and proportions of tone or color, the use of lines, best placing of your main feature, and so on.