Is center composition always a mistake, or—when you know what you’re doing—can it benefit your photos? We’ll show you several examples of when you should compose to the center and when to avoid center compositions, and also how to improve a photo you’ve center-composed.

Maybe you’ve been there—standing somewhere with a breathtaking nature scene in front of you. You pressed the trigger a few times, but for all the world you couldn’t get a picture that really showed the beauty you had before you. What was the problem?

Using a series of repeating objects in a photo’s background can make it compositionally impressive. It gives the photo a rhythm—which you can then interrupt with a properly placed subject. And if you hide the end of the series of objects that form the rhythm, you make the photo feel endless. Your audience gets the feeling that the row of repeating objects never ends.

One very simple and effective way to emphasize your subject is to find a high-contrast background. You can contrast your subject against the background not only visually, but also in terms of its meaning. These contrasts are especially strong when a picture contains two elements that seem dissimilar, but join together to form a surprising composition with a powerful message.

When a photo tells a story and uses several objects to tell it, that can be a lot for your audience to digest. To make sure they know how to read the photo, position the different parts of its composition so that the photo forms a single, balanced whole. The photo shouldn’t feel like one side or the other is too “heavy.” Let’s take a look at today’s article at how to use composition to get a correctly balanced picture.

Flowers and other plants can be compelling subjects, and you can get fancier than just photographing them the same way every time. Take inspiration from today’s article and read up on the why’s and how’s of composing when you’re photographing plants.

There are several tools you can use to draw your audience’s eyes towards your photos’ subjects. But there are also many ways in which you can accidentally transfix your audience with something different than what you intended. So in today’s article, read up on the right way to get your audience’s attention and keep them focused on your subject. That will give your pictures better, more pleasing composition.

As a photographer, you have one fundamental tool for defining pictures’ composition. That tool is the way you place your subject in the frame. You can do this job best if you know about the Golden Crop and the Rule of Thirds. Your placement of the subject within a photo’s space affects not only how easy it is overall to interpret, but also the meaning of what it says.

You’ll enhance a photo’s composition whenever you make sure to fill up its frame with your subject. To do this every time, sometimes you’ll need to use a zoom or a long lens, and sometimes you’ll need to step closer, but your pictures will speak more strongly, and your audience will know what they’re looking at.

To get good-looking photos, you need to respect the basic rules of composition while composing your shots. Good subject placement is one of these rules. Always think about the scene before you press the trigger—that way you can avoid problems such as objects in the picture touching each other or excess noise in the background. The better you position your subject, the more it will shine in your photo.