| Composition in photography is not an exact science. There are many "rules" which have developed over time and which "experts" may quote in giving a critique of an image. However, these can conflict with each other and one rule may apply to some genres of image better than another. |  |
| The internet is full of guidance about composition. There are two ways of using it. | |
| 1. Look through one or two sites which list the common rules and show some examples of how these are applied. | |
| This is a site which Russ Walters took us through in June 2018 to illustrate examples of the main rules: 18 composition rules for photos that shine | http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/ |
| I rather like this one, which illustrates and explains the rules quite well (despite the silly name): 20 rules to make you a composition ninja | https://www.diyphotography.net/20-tips-rules-make-composition-ninja/ |
| A couple of other sites to have a look at are: Petapixel - 20 composition techniques | https://petapixel.com/2016/09/14/20-composition-techniques-will-improve-photos |
| This site is a little different. It takes more of a philosophical approach than hard rules: Bell and Howell – An introduction to photographic composition | https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/ |
| This American site sets out a range of ideas for composition, some in a rather "cartoony" style. | Finding your Inner Photographer/ |
| 2. Browse examples of the Composition Rules | |
| To do this, go into either Bing images or Google images and browse for "composition in photography". Once in there, you will see lots of images illustrating how a rule is applied. Click one or two and discover a few things. As you browse around these, you will see a series of tags across the top of the page, above the pictures. These change according to the features of the picture you are looking at. For example, one might show "rule of thirds". Click on this tag, and the page will fill with images illustrating rule of thirds. As you browse around these, you will see other rules, like "golden ratio", "symmetry" or "rule of odds". Click on the images that you like and see what rules come up. Click on those rules and see if they show you more images of a style that you like. In this way, you will get to see other people's work which can enhance your own techniques. | |
| * Bing image links | https://www.bing.com/images/search |
| * Google image links | https://www.google.co.uk/search |
| Back to Techniques page |
