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‹ Photo Notes · 15 ledna, 2012
A simple trick for improving the composition of your holiday photographs or first attempts at portraits and figures.
Probably the most common compositional mistake in photographs is that people aim at the face. Most simple cameras have the focus point set to the centre, and for us too it is somehow natural to look the photographed person in the eyes. The result, however, is often a tiny figure in the lower part of the photo and an unnecessarily empty upper half.
In connection with composition we could talk about thirds, the golden section and the like, but for many people that means laborious thinking while taking the shot and thus needless distraction. When Miroslav Hvorka tried long ago to rid me of various mishaps, he simply told me: „don’t look at the head, look at the chest„.
This advice of course doesn’t solve composition as a whole, but it is definitely worth trying, and no one will tell you again that you have unnecessarily much space at the top.
Portrait
On the left wrongly aimed at the head – the person in the shot is small, the upper half empty;
on the right aimed at the chest, the person is larger and fills the shot better compositionally.
The same rule can mostly be applied when shooting in landscape format too.
in practice:
Figure
On the left wrongly aimed at the head;
in the middle aimed at the chest, the photograph works better, but it is still mostly not it (it can be useful, though, if behind the figure there is, for example, an interesting panorama);
on the right this time aimed at the middle of the abdomen, the figure is large enough and fills the photograph quite ideally.
in practice:
Simple, isn’t it? 🙂
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