Composition

Whether photography is just a hobby, taking pictures with your cell phone or you’re a professional with a high-tech camera, the most important concept for all photographers is how to effectively compose a nature/landscape image. You are probably familiar with the “rule of thirds,” as well as using “S shapes” and “lateral lines” to guide a viewer’s eyes through an image, while simultaneously creating a dramatic visual experience.  In this blog, I’m going to focus on the rule of thirds and lateral lines, using specific examples.  In a subsequent blog, I will discuss how to make more dramatic photos using light and color that make images “pop” by separating points of interest from the rest of the scene.

To begin, put aside lighting, technique, timing and execution and just visualize how you would compose a photo and how you would imagine, let’s say, your friends looking at it.  What should be going through your mind, before hitting the shutter button, is how to compose your “soon to be” masterpiece. Once you feel you have everything in the right position by following the rule of thirds, then you may want to use your cell phone first to snap a shot of your composition. A close look at the cell phone photo will verify, if what you see through the viewfinder or camera display is actually what your mind is visualizing in your composition of the scene. If what you see on your cell phone is not what you had in mind, step back and take a look at the landscape in general and draw connections between the different parts of the scene to form a new image in your mind. Do not over think, keep it simple and keep the edges of your image clean. Once you feel comfortable with this process, you will find that you no longer need your cell phone to help you visualize.

So, what do we mean when we say “Keep it simple”?  The rule of thirds offers general guidelines. As you can guess by its name, the rule states that you should divide your image into horizontal and vertical thirds (see photo of Thomas Murphy/Reed Moulton Barn below).  If you are looking for guidance, your camera should have the capability of displaying this on your viewfinder.  For me it’s easier to imagine breaking the image up into thirds. The theory behind this rule is that if you place the main objects in your composition along the intersections created by the rule of thirds, then your overall image will be more balanced and pleasing to the viewer.

What the rule of thirds does is to provide the viewer with a relationship between parts of the scene and thus creating a better understanding of what the photographer composed in his/her mind right before pressing the shutter button. People look at images in different ways, depending upon what catches their eye, left to right, top to bottom, etc. So which third of the image you place your main subjects of the photo is important to ensure that they are pleasing to the eye. I need to say here that, at times, “rules are made to be broken” and this holds true for the rule of thirds. Sometimes you can create something very dramatic by breaking the rule as you will see in some of my examples below. Most photographers have a natural tendency to place the main subject of the composition in the center third of the image, but sometimes magic can occur when you use off-center composition. 

What you really need to be tuned into are what parts of the scene do you feel are most important to you and the viewer. After that, imagine those parts on different intersecting lines or sections of the rule of thirds to determine what is the best composition for that scene. You will see, in at least one of my examples, that the sky was the most important aspect of the image, so I gave it prominence on the top horizontal third extending over to the middle of the scene.  

To reiterate, as you compose your image, always keep in mind “keep it simple.”  Decide what you want the image to be and then think…maybe that means including less ocean, or removing the extra bristlecone tree, or omitting the entire archway, or maybe even the entire reflection. Many times, when you exclude certain parts of a composition, the image becomes more powerful.

Let’s look at some examples and imagine the rule of thirds grid placed over each photo. What you will see is that I did not always center the main subject in the photo. For several, I let the available light be the guide to where the viewer’s eye would follow my composition. You will also see where lateral lines focus the attention of the viewer to a given destination. In a night composition, I composed the scene knowing where the viewer’s eye would travel and gave prominence to the upper two thirds of the photo.  In one photo, I was lying on my back, composing the image of Grosvenor’s Arch, knowing that I wanted the tree to be a prominent part of the image, pointing toward the double arch on top.

In my first example, Grosvenor’s Arch in Utah, the arrows point in the direction the eye would take in the image based on the rule of thirds from the lower horizontal third, through the middle, to the top horizontal third:

In the second example in Wyoming, the main aspect of the composition is the tree, which I placed off-center to highlight its importance as it towers over the mountains in the background, giving the mountain range a life of its own, free from the tree.  The viewer’s eyes go from the brightly-colored sage grass on the bottom to the tree with the same coloring and then to the Tetons and the surrounding sky:

In this example, the sky dominates the composition covering the top and middle horizontal sections of the photo and takes the viewer’s eye from the sky to the shoreline, to the architectural colors, and finally to the Vltava River in Prague.

In the photo of the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey, center-leading lines draw the viewer’s attention from the woman to her final destination. To draw attention to the woman, I placed her on the bottom left intersection of the grid. The boardwalk dominates the theme leading to the Convention Center. The mist-filled sky fills the upper horizontal third of the photo:

In this example at Schwabacher Landing, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the early morning, brightly lit mountains are located in the lower center horizontal third, drawing the viewer’s eyes toward the stars in the upper center and all of the top horizontal third. Finally, the viewer’s eyes fall to the reflection in the bottom horizontal third of the photo.

This photo is Devil’s Garden, Escalante, Utah, and a prime example of when it does not make sense to adhere to the rule of thirds in the location you are in at the moment. In this example, the arrows follow the light of sight, first reflecting off the rocks at the midpoint of the right intersection and then out to the sky:

This photo, from Newport Coast, California, shows how the main subject is off centered, the setting sun placed along the left intersecting line of the rule of thirds, and the flow of viewing, as identified by the arrows, from the sun to the partially lit flowers along the lower horizontal third to the dominating sky:

The next photo from Joshua Tree Park, California, is an interesting one for a couple of reasons. First, the branches in the water act as an anchor for the bottom portion of the photo, drawing the viewer first into this lower third section of the photo, then to the brightly colored vegetation along the right bank of the center third of the photo and finally to the distant mountain range in the upper horizontal third section of the photo. If I was shooting this image without an anchor and only to show symmetry in an image through the reflection of the mountain range and sky in the water, it would not make sense to use the rule of thirds, since every aspect of the photo would be centrally located in the image.

In this image from the Canyonlands, near Moab Utah, the rule of thirds is easily discernable with the main body of the winding road in the bottom third of the photo leading the viewer’s eye up to the center third of the photo, with the canyon walls and the road disappearing into the distance. Finally, the upper third portion of the photo is filled with the brilliant sky:

This photo from Mormon Row in Wyoming, is an example of not using the rule of thirds. Within this composition, there is a dominant theme in the foreground, the outhouse, placed left of center and the Teton mountain range in the background. So, if you are shooting with a shallow depth of field to separate your subject from the background, you may just want to be creative, and not closely follow the rule of thirds:

This example was a photo taken at Laguna Beach in California. The composition takes place in the center vertical section of the photo with the setting sun and smoke-filled sky filling the center portions of the middle and top horizontal thirds of the photo. The dragon kite is placed at the top right intersection and the child is placed at the bottom right intersection of the image at the edge of the ocean. All aspects of the photo complement each other. The viewer first sees the setting sun and the dragon kite, then the sky and finally the lone child:

In this example from outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, one can easily see the dominant themes filling the vertical thirds of the photo. The river fills the middle vertical third and the brightly colored trees of the riverbank filling the left and right vertical thirds. The arrows follow the viewer’s eye from the lower center section of the horizontal third up the river and then moving out to the brightly colored trees throughout the image:

In the final example from Venice, Italy, I show lateral lines which guide the viewer’s eyes from the reflection and the beautifully colored buildings to the brilliant sky in the upper right portion of the photo.

In summary, the rule of thirds is not a perfect science when applied in real-life situations. Rather, it’s a guideline that should help your composition, but not supersede your creativity when out in the field. If your compositional points of interest do not line up with the gridlines of the rule of thirds, that is perfectly fine. You alone are the maestro of your composition.