Basic Photography | The Art of Composition

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | Paddy Field | Sungai Besar Selangor

Photography is a highly subjective matter, especially when we talk about the artistic aspect of photography. Just like painting, some people can understand and appreciate abstract or modern art while others can only appreciate simple art or straight forward art where they can clearly see the subjective matter, whether it is a portrait or  landscape where abstract art is a little bit complicated to be understand for most people on the street including me.

Personally for me, when it comes to composition, it is also a subjective matter, yes we all know about rule of third, golden rules and few other things that related to photography. Those are some basic rules where most people find it to be interesting if we photograph something according to those rules, I think we should called it as a guide instead of rules.

Back to the photograph here, I know I did not following the rule of third when composing the top photograph where I put my son right almost in the centre of the frame. I can easily cropped the picture above and put my son close to the right of the frame and maybe I will get a praise for following the rules but for me, I like to keep it that way, I like the composition, simply because it works for me and it was pleasing to my eyes and nothing else matter. It is the way I see it and it is the way that I wanted to share it with you and I don’t mind if you don’t like it.

Still, speaking about my top picture, I can make it clean, make it less cluttered by cropping the horizon and just leaving the golden paddy field to fills the frame but I decided not to. I want to show the viewer, I want to show you that there is a house at the end of the paddy field, I want to show you that there is a coconut trees at the end of the paddy field. It is my intention to include all those things and I think by framing those things into the frame, you can get the feel of countryside, Malaysian country side.

I believe, the way you compose the picture will affect the way you wanted to tell about the place. In the top photograph, I use (UWA) Ultra Wide Angle lens 10-20mm to show the vast area of the paddy fields, this is what photographers normally called as environmental photography, where you include the subject and the surrounding, even without a caption you can tell where my son is standing.

Speaking about the composition again, there is a reason why I did not centralize the horizon, instead I just put the horizon almost at the edge of the frame and leaving large area occupied with the golden paddy field. The reason is simple, my subject my subject matter here is the paddy field and my son is the focal point. If the sky is blue and the cloud formation is beautiful, then maybe I will change the composition a bit but in this picture the sky is plain white or grey and there is no point to give it the extra “frame”.

Other than composition, you also need to take note about the “Focal Point”, what is your focal point in the picture. Focal point is where you want the viewers to look at. The main point in the frame, the point where you want to take the viewers to stop and pay attention the most, otherwise the viewers will be wandering around aimlessly at you frame and doesn’t know where to rest their eyes.

Great pictures whether it is a landscape or portrait should have a focal point. In close up portrait photography, usually the focal point is the eyes, so better get the eyes sharp and in landscape the focal point can be a boat or kayak in the middle of big lake or river. This focal point will add visual interest to the picture. The viewers have a resting place after enjoying your picture, they have a place where they can rest their eyes and for the picture above, my focal point is my son. After you see the vastness of the countryside or the beautiful of the golden paddy field, you can rest your eyes on my son and take a look at what he is doing. Finally you have something to look at instead of wandering aimlessly.

I’ve include a wide established shot and close up shot here, where I use 10-20mm for the top picture and for the second picture I use 50mm lens to get a close view of my son playing with the paddy. For the second close up picture, I follow the rules of third. Why? Because I think it is suitable here and not because to satisfy my friends or to satisfy my blog reader here.

The art of  composition is subjective matter, it will depend on the photographers, what do you really wanted to tell, it’s your story and since photography is a form of “Visual Story” you need to choose your composition wisely in order for you to tell the viewers what you really wanted to tell. There is an art in story telling where some people can tell the same story beautifully than the others, same like photographers, if you go to this place with your friends and hopefully he or she is “not good” at photography, you will definitely get a different pictures or angle. The reason is simple, normally the photographers can tell the story “visually” better than those who have little knowledge in photography.

Basically the art of composition is not much different than the art of story telling. It is up to you, what you really wanted to tell and what you don’t want to tell. I believe bad composition can still be able tell a story, uneven horizon still can tell a story, a slightly blur picture where you still can recognize the subject or the person in the picture still can tell a story but it is better if we can tell the story beautifully and artistically.

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