Feeling Photography - 3.0 Composition

So what do you think when someone says 'Composition'?
Do you think of the old masters paintings like the Mona Lisa, do you think of stories, writing types or something completely different?

As a photographer, I think of the 'rules'. There are so many rules, do this, don't do that, turn around three times with a spoon in your ear. For new photographers and artists, the rules can be a huge stumbling block to creativity, on the other hand they can be liberating, freeing the newbie from having the stress of failed pictures due to a poor composition.

There are roughly two main compositional rules.

1. The Rule of Thirds.
   
2. The Golden Spiral.

The rule of thirds is pretty much the easiest rule to grasp for the new photographer and we'll discuss this in the next post, the golden spiral rule it similar to the rule of thirds but is a little more esoteric and takes a lot longer to grasp fully.
There is one other rule, but it is for landscape photographers mainly. It is called the rule of fifths, we will touch on that later on in this particular series subsection.

So what exactly is composition?

Composition
Com`po*si"tion\, n. [F. composition, fr. L. compositio.]
1. The act or art of composing, or forming a whole or integral, by placing together and uniting different things, parts, or ingredients. In specific uses: (a) The invention or combination of the parts of any literary work or discourse, or of a work of art; as, the composition of a poem or a piece of music. "The constant habit of elaborate composition." --Macaulay. (b) (Fine Arts) The art or practice of so combining the different parts of a work of art as to produce a harmonious whole; also, a work of art considered as such. See 4, below. (c) The act of writing for practice in a language, as English, Latin, German, etc. (d) (Print.) The setting up of type and arranging it for printing.

- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

So according to the source above (The art or practice of so combining the different parts of a work of art as to produce a harmonious whole) composition is the best way of making or enhancing your message, your point. (I'll cover the difference between a photograph and a snapshot later on. I want to keep this short.)

In painting & drawing it's all good. It's easy to move a building in a scene two meters to the left and get rid of the tree right in the way. Photography is waaay harder, unless you have a gazillion pounds, moving buildings trees or whatever is pretty impossible. What you can do is move yourself, although moving yourself can throw up new and interesting problems...

Sure you can take a series of photographs and then spend hours in Photoshop combing and layering but while I think for certain things, I'm a firm believer in getting it right in camera as much as possible.

Photographers work with what's there, it's a dance between your vision and the reality. The great photographers go it nailed, but you can bet they sucked at first, but you never get to see those pics.

So next time I'll chat about the rule of thirds. Take care for now!

---