"Before you compose your picture, it's a good idea to ask yourself why you're doing it."
-Anonymous
Music, painting or any given art, has composition as a backbone. The key is to get it resonate; what hits is what sticks. If we discuss photography, framing is a major factor to make or break it. We might have come across a set of defined rules to improve aesthetics; rule of thirds, leading lines, golden ratio, consistent patterns, you name it, but what gets visualized is beyond such rules. An advised practice is visual learning, prior to clicking, even before you introduce a capturing device into the scene, it’s how you choose to see it through your own eyes, the individual perspective.
In today’s digital age, owning a digital camera, a smartphone for that matter, provides the ease of capturing and reviewing stills and videos as and when desired. The electronic devices possess the technological capability to record but it’s the imagination guiding the hows and whats.
The creative mind behind the camera has the freedom to capture, review and improvise. It’s a simple task, click a series of pictures, refer the histogram and check the scope for improvement. Adjust for basics like exposure, details and framing. Your choice for focus as a primary subject can’t be toggled later on. Post-processing might assist with tones and exposure, but the frame has to be corrected while it gets captured. Try to move the subject to get a better frame, if that isn’t possible, make adjustments to lights, or perhaps move yourself. Alter the height and distance, see what works, experiment with all the accessible angles and dimensions.
Find the frame that makes you happy, settle for nothing less.
A personal story to describe the thought process. This was back in December 2016, an early morning photowalk with the members of Jaipur Photography Club. An hour post sunrise, streets start bustling with life. We all stopped for our morning doses of elixir, namely tea, at a local vendor. What made it stand out was the preparation style lit by the morning sun. My urge to click grew.
The first picture gave an obvious hint of this indeed being a lovely subject. The light, the smoke, the bubbling hot tea. There was a definitive need to improvise, justify the picture and the story it meant to narrate.
Adjusting my position to highlight the subject in a better manner, I tried introducing the people in the background. It did not suit the overall aesthetic.
It was time to get right in front of the action by the third shot. The vendor was definitely an artist, the tea being the art, it felt disrespectful to not include him. My subject in focus was still the tea and smoke.
The fourth shot was all about getting the right timing. It was done, the result on my screen was pure delight. Sipping on the warm tea, I joined the others as we walked away, bringing the photowalk session to a close.
Take care of the small things, the big picture slowly sorts itself, and a little post-processing goes a long way.
What started off just as a simple visual learning exercise resulted in one of my favourite clicks till date. The tale inside one’s head, the individual perspective, stands to be unique; with the tools in hand, it’s how you make the world visualize it.
Go preserve that slice of time shaped by your creativity.
Happy clicking!
One thought on “Composition Matters”
‘it’s the imagination guiding the hows and whats’ – The truth.
Loved the beautiful story behind the absolutely amazing clicks 😍