Drawing Attention To Your Subject
There are a variety of ways to draw attention to the subject of your photograph. You do not need to apply them all, and some are more suited to one subject than to another.
Fill the frame: Filling the frame with your subject is one way of drawing attention to it. Up front and bold makes it apparent what the subject is.
Blur the background: The longer your lens, the shorter your focal range. (that is the distance that appears in reasonable focus in your picture) A short focal range allows you to have your subject in focus and the background slightly out of focus causing your subject to jump right out at the viewer. This is also something that works with showing motion in a picture... panning with the motion will cause the background to blur unless you have a very fast shutter speed to freeze action.
If the attention of everyone in a photograph is centered on the subject, that is another way to draw the attention to it. Or, if it is a group picture, having everyone look at the same thing will add the unity to bring them together as a group making them as subject, stand out.
Your eye is drawn into a picture from the lower left and proceeds up and right until if finds the subject. If your subject is placed in one third of the frame, (which can be right/left top or bottom) without lots of distraction in the other two thirds then you subject will be clear to the viewer.
There are times when you actually do want to center your subject, but that is not the norm. Simplification is still very important, so if there are distractions that are irrelevant to your subject and context in the other 2/3 of the picture, it is better to have the subject centered.
Many composition issues are compromises with what you have to work with. A portrait of the conductor of a philharmonic could easily include a partially blurred orchestra, the seats, or part of a piano. If there is something large like a piano that is going to be in the shot, then have it only partly in the shot so it does not distract from the portrait (of course if the piano is the subject that is another story.)
Composition in photography is important, and perhaps more difficult to put your finger on what is good composition and what is bad.. Add to that the differences of opinion on what constitutes good composition that I have encountered myself makes this a long and interesting discussion.
I hope to give you a sense of this, and present some of the conflicting "golden rules" of composition .. as you develope your own style you will most likely gravitate towards some of these
Fill the frame: Filling the frame with your subject is one way of drawing attention to it. Up front and bold makes it apparent what the subject is.
Blur the background: The longer your lens, the shorter your focal range. (that is the distance that appears in reasonable focus in your picture) A short focal range allows you to have your subject in focus and the background slightly out of focus causing your subject to jump right out at the viewer. This is also something that works with showing motion in a picture... panning with the motion will cause the background to blur unless you have a very fast shutter speed to freeze action.
If the attention of everyone in a photograph is centered on the subject, that is another way to draw the attention to it. Or, if it is a group picture, having everyone look at the same thing will add the unity to bring them together as a group making them as subject, stand out.
Your eye is drawn into a picture from the lower left and proceeds up and right until if finds the subject. If your subject is placed in one third of the frame, (which can be right/left top or bottom) without lots of distraction in the other two thirds then you subject will be clear to the viewer.
There are times when you actually do want to center your subject, but that is not the norm. Simplification is still very important, so if there are distractions that are irrelevant to your subject and context in the other 2/3 of the picture, it is better to have the subject centered.
Many composition issues are compromises with what you have to work with. A portrait of the conductor of a philharmonic could easily include a partially blurred orchestra, the seats, or part of a piano. If there is something large like a piano that is going to be in the shot, then have it only partly in the shot so it does not distract from the portrait (of course if the piano is the subject that is another story.)
Composition in photography is important, and perhaps more difficult to put your finger on what is good composition and what is bad.. Add to that the differences of opinion on what constitutes good composition that I have encountered myself makes this a long and interesting discussion.
I hope to give you a sense of this, and present some of the conflicting "golden rules" of composition .. as you develope your own style you will most likely gravitate towards some of these
posted by Silvatungfox at 8:33 PM
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