Camera aside, what helps you learn to compose?

[Drew Bedo]

I joined a local photography club in the late 1980s; The Houston Photographic society ( www.hpsonline.net ). Each month there is a print competition with a judge who awards 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in various categories.

The judging criteria are left up to each judge and the feed-back from them is varied. One learns to have a tolerance for criticism.

The most value to me was seeing my work (my favorite images) next to the work of many other photographers working with any format both film and digital. This is where I learned the most about composition and framing . . . .That and the feed-back and interaction with wonderfully sharing people who were obviously (to me) better at it than I was.

[Brian Ellis]

I don't know that "composition" is necessarily all that important. But to the extent that it's important I think it's about 80% innate talent and 20% learned by whatever means one chooses. For me that's been a lot of different things - painting, workshops, college courses, attending exhibits, reading books, making mistakes, attending movies, watching TV, looking at light, and probably many other things that don't come immediately to mind. But basically I think it's something some people are just good at and others aren't. Someone who isn't can still make decent photographs by learning a few "rules," e.g. "to create a sense of depth include some object in the foreground," "don't center the main subject," that kind of stuff. But IMHO those kinds of "rules" quickly become crutches and lead to making the same photograph over and over again.

[Brian C. Miller]

Thinking and feeling.

Photography is either about bare facts or emotion. Is the photograph a document, or is it trying to evoke a feeling of some sort?

+1 on what Brian Ellis said above, rules do become crutches, for a lot of people. I read one editor saying in an interview that the vast majority of photographs coming across his desk had objects exactly on 1/3 lines in the photograph. The photographers had grid lines on their camera screens, and were composing exactly to those lines. The editor was glad when a photographer sent in photos where the subjects weren't precisely on 1/3 grid lines.

And I also agree what has been said previously in the thread, that it takes a lot of time, film, and looking at other photographs and art. (Usually I think to myself, "why was that photographed?" and I don't have an answer for that. Usually, the photographer also doesn't have a coherent answer, either.) When a composition I've made doesn't work, I think about what it was that I thought would work, and then try to get that right.

[sun of sand]

What in the world is the point of this thread for you, Heroique?

I swear the point is to just talk

[John Olsen]

What in the world is the point of this thread for you, Heroique?

I swear the point is to just talk

And what's wrong with talk? I got some interesting perspectives from this talk. Thanks to the other contributors.

[Heroique]

...I think composition is about 80% innate talent and 20% learned by whatever means one chooses. ...Someone who isn’t [good at it] can still make decent photographs by learning a few “rules,” e.g., “to create a sense of depth include some object in the foreground,” “don’t center the main subject,” that kind of stuff. But IMHO those kinds of "rules" quickly become crutches and lead to making the same photograph over and over again.

Your 80/20 split has me curious about how high one should rate the influence of culture on our habits of composition. I imagine that you include culture in the “20% learned” portion? Me, I’d probably rate culture higher than 20%, maybe much higher, on both conscious and less-conscious levels.

Also, the “rules” you mention remind me of the useful “Rule of Thirds.” Below are two images I shared in a related thread about composition; they’re from John Shaw’s Closeups in Nature (post #13). Shaw likes the horizontal image better because the chipmunk’s eye falls very near one of the rule-of-thirds intersections. In the vertical image, the eye is a bit off, and sure enough, the fellow in that shot just doesn’t seem as interesting to me.

One might be curious if Shaw composed the “better” horizontal shot due to his recollection of a rule, or because it felt better to him, on an innate level.

[adam satushek]

Eyes, two of them.....though one works in a pinch.

[Brian Ellis]

Your 80/20 split has me curious about how high one should rate the influence of culture on our habits of composition. I imagine that you include culture in the “20% learned” portion? Me, I’d probably rate culture higher than 20%, maybe much higher, on both conscious and less-conscious levels.

Also, the “rules” you mention remind me of the useful “Rule of Thirds.” Below are two images I shared in a related thread about composition; they’re from John Shaw’s Closeups in Nature (post #13). Shaw likes the horizontal image better because the chipmunk’s eye falls very near one of the rule-of-thirds intersections. In the vertical image, the eye is a bit off, and sure enough, the fellow in that shot just doesn’t seem as interesting to me.

One might be curious if Shaw composed the “better” horizontal shot due to his recollection of a rule, or because it felt better to him, on an innate level.

The 80-20 numbers weren't derived on any scientific basis, 70-30 or 60-40 probably would have gotten the point across just as well and have been just as accurate.

[Kirk Gittings]

One might be curious if Shaw composed the “better” horizontal shot due to his recollection of a rule, or because it felt better to him, on an innate level.

If its the former hes not composing just regurgitating someone else's idea of composing. If its the later he still has hope.

[Laura_Campbell]

I use intuition to compose. It's a feeling thing for me. If I feel it it's right, if I don't I move on.