Composition

Composition: Fill the Frame

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.

Composition: Positioning Your Subject

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.

Compose Better—Use a Black and White Preview

Does it sound crazy to you to use a black-and-white preview in your camera instead of color? Try it anyway. This preview will keep your eyes more focused on composition, making it easier for you to notice compositional flaws. That enables you to fix composition errors on the spot, instead of crying over your ruined pictures at home on your computer.

How to Recognize Great Photos

You see photos everywhere. Browse the web: you see photos. Open a newspaper: you see photos. Drive to work: you see billboards with smiling models… in photos. And that’s just the situation for normal people. It’s even worse for us photographers, who live and die for photos. So how can you pick good photos out of the flood of them you see each day?

Rectangle, Square, or Panorama? How to crop your photo?

The standard formats (height/width ratios, also called aspect ratios) for photographs have evolved over time. But some formats have proven over time that they’re best left untouched, and so camera makers stick with them. So let’s take a look at the most common aspect ratios for digital images—these ratios are also the ones produced by digital cameras, and photo labs and photo frame manufacturers expect them.

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