Practically everybody out there is taking at least a few pictures these days, no matter whether it’s with a camera, a cell phone, a tablet, or another device. These photos are then pouring onto our social networks. And the people in them are carefully tagged, and yet meanwhile they’re often also robbed of their ankles or hair, or have stop signs, tree branches, etc. growing from their heads. These are all basic composition mistakes. And today I’ll help make sure you never have to make them again.

Photography is just one in a long line of visual arts, and it’s inherited several established rules from its ancestors. It inherited them because they work, and because using them makes for more eye-pleasing photographs. Among those rules is the Golden Ratio.

Image composition is a critical element that can elevate—or deflate—the value of your photographs. Thus it’s something that you should never underestimate.