Composition is the structure of a photograph. It’s how you arrange the elements in your image to create the look you want, and it can make or break an image. If you stumble upon an interesting subject — no matter how good the light is, or how unusual the conditions are — you still need to compose the photo well if you want a successful result. You have an absurd amount of power to change the composition of a photo. Move forwards and backwards, left and right. Change your lens — zoom in, zoom out. And pay attention to which elements of the scene you’re including, as well as the ones you’re not. Done right, composition takes your subject and presents it to your viewers as effectively as possible. It is the mechanism for conveying a message with your photos.
The Elements of Composition
Points, lines, and shapes. At the most fundamental level, those are the only elements of composition. Anything in your image — your subject, the background, tiny details that don’t even matter — they’re all points, lines, and shapes. Some of them are very complex, of course. A face or a tree clearly are not simple things. But they still have a shape, and they can help form the structure of an image. On top of individual elements in a photo, there’s also the way they interconnect with one another. Several elements of a photo, arranged properly, are stronger than the sum of their parts.