One Brief Moment

Good Composition is a key element of good photographs yet is something that is hard to define.

Instead of looking at composition as a set of ‘rules’ to follow – I view it as a set of ingredients that can be taken out of the pantry at any point and used to make a great ‘meal’ photograph. Alternatively I’ve often described it as a set of ‘tools’ that can be taken out of one’s compositional tool belt at any given time in the construction of a great image.

The key is to remember that in the same way as a chef rarely uses all the ingredients at their disposal in any dish – that a photographer rarely uses all of the ingredients of composition in the making of an image.

Today I’d like to look at five of the ingredients or tools, or elements of composition that I draw on in my photography. They’re not ‘rules’ – just things that I consider when setting up a shot.

via 5 Elements of Composition in Photography.

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What makes a photograph good or bad? What attributes to making great photographs? Well, it is not just one thing which makes the photograph awesome; it is in fact a whole lot of rules, factors and skills practiced and implemented by the photographer to make the great photograph happen. A perfect blend of the photographer’s expression and the photography concepts at play contribute to the greatness of the photograph. While stumbling through interesting photographs on Flickr and picking the good ones for the blog posts, I have come across the following factors that make the photographs worthy of appreciation.

via Making Great Pictures — 10 Factors That Make A Photograph “Great”.

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Photography itself is a very creative hobby or profession for that matter. Thus when referring to “creative photography” I actually refer to the extra creativity required above and beyond the creativity for photography. This means tricks and out-of-the-box ideas to capture “photographic fiction” — something that really doesn’t perhaps happen or is seen naturally.

So how do you get to be creative above and beyond what you already are? This is a two part series on creative photography. Part I is about getting the creative vision. Let’s get started.

via Creative Photography I — 12 Tips To Get Creative For Creative Photography.

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Before I dove head first into the world of photography (there was no toe-in-the water transition period for me), I hadn’t ever considered or learned about composition. I thought it only had something to do with painting. If I was going to take pictures of real life, I didn’t imagine that I would be saying to the man running for the bus, “excuse me, could you please step into this third here?” I disregarded composition entirely. Then there came a point where I began intuitively setting my manual settings without much thought. I was suddenly left with loads of time on my hands while shooting to, not necessarily bother my subjects with moving around in a scene, but to move myself appropriately and be quick enough to catch something in the split second when it was naturally well composed.

So if you are like me and you haven’t yet considered composition, here are a few rules to get you going. Naturally, rules are made to be broken. But you can’t break the rules until you have mastered them. More on that another time. Here are four hard and fast rules of composition I can’t live without:

via Four Rules of Photographic Composition.

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