Composition

In this lesson we looked into composition and three of the most commly used ideas which are the rule of thirds, triangles and the golden spiral.

The first rule of composition is the rule of thirds. This is one of the most common compositional rules used within photography, that there is even a grid that should appear when you are shooting through the lens of your camera looking like the one on the right. It is known that when the key focus of your image or an important feature is placed on either one of the parts where the lines meet or even simply on then line then the image is more interesting to the human eye. We are drawn to things when they are divided into thirds which is why we use this technique.

The next is the Golden Spiral was made known by Fibonacci who discovered that there was an absolute ratio that naturally occurred in nature all around us, that is seen as pleasing to the human eye. It has even been used by artists and architects since the Renaissance, found in the Parthenon and even the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. When this idea is applied to photography, it can help you take aesthetically pleasing images, if composed in this specific way. To do this specific features should be placed within this spiral and have the rest of the subject following along the spiral, for example, having an eye located in the centre of the spiral and the rest of their body positioned to sweep around the outside. To help compose photos in this way there is a grid that can be use that relates to the rule of thirds grid, called the Phi Grid, which divides the frame into a ratio of 1:1.618:1 which makes the middle rows, both vertically and horizontally, narrower than the others.

Finally there is triangles which can be found in photographs all the time, but composing an image using the golden triangle can help improve the way the eye is drawn to an image. Triangles help to connect key lines and features within a photo together to lead the eye around the image, which can be done easily by applying this technique. Draw a diagonal line from one corner to the opposite when looking through the viewfinder, then draw another line from one of the other corners to meet the first line making a right angle, looking like this: You should then try to line up the key features of the image to coincide with the lines. Another way that triangles can be used is to simple try and find or create triangles in the image you are going to shoot

Here are my examples of using these compositional ideas:

Rule of Thirds:

Triangles:

The Golden Spiral: