Composition Improvements
Composition doesn’t just end when we click the shutter button. Far from it, I’ll often crop images at home if I see a picture within the picture. Besides, not every landscape or subject we shoot will fit the aspect ratio of our cameras. As a lot of you who’ve been on workshops with me will testify – I have a dislike for the 3:2 aspect ratio and will often find a 4:5 crop within the images of the participants on my trips.
But I thought it would be really cool to discuss some further ways of helping ‘refine’ a composition once you have something finished and ready to let the world see as it were. Often, when we think we’re finished, there’s perhaps room for some further improvement.
So let’s look at this image I shot on Eigg:
I’m a big believer in ‘balance’ as well as symmetry in my compositions, and I will go to great lengths to emphasise this to participants on my workshops. Often finding ‘flow’ in a composition. In the image above, those of you who have read my ‘Simplifying Composition’ eBook will know, contains lots of S-curves in the frame. But what about balance? I feel the image sits well and that there is an equal spacing between left and right object, but if we flip it horizontally, what happens?
Our minds interpret this flipped version very differently. In fact, I now feel there is far too much space on the right hand side of the frame. There seems to be an abundance of rock that’s not doing much on the right hand side of the frame, so I want to crop it:
Ahhh, that’s better. My mind isn’t going banana’s any more about that abundance of rock on the right hand side of the frame. I feel my life is much more on an even-keel and my compulsive-obsessive-personality can now rest (for a few minutes at least anyway) ;-)
So now we’ve cropped the right hand side of the frame, how does the image look if we revert it back to the original rotation?
The image still works, and if I compare it with what we started with, I feel i’ve made it a little more balanced, tighter too perhaps, which isn’t a bad thing, but overall, I feel what I have now is an improvement.
As with all things, vision, artistic sensibilities, taste – it’s all subjective and with photography, there is often compromise involved. Perhaps the final crop has less ‘breathing space’ to it. But I do feel that there’s much more balance between left and right.
Ultimately, flipping images vertically can allow you to spot imbalance in your compositions and they allow you to notice things you weren’t aware of when the image was flipped the right way round. Just don’t over-analyse it: if the image works in the first place, then maybe that fine-tune-crop may be a crop-too-far.
Hi Bruce,
An intersteing concept and not one that I have thought of before, although it does make sense.
Do you think that in the first image the reason that you don’t feel there is too much foreground rock is that in the western world we naturally view images from left to right, therefore the eye move quickly on from the area that might be deemed too large a feature> I think this is because we read text from left to right. I beleive the opposite is true of eastern cultures.
I think in the first image the bulk of rock in the bottom left is near equal to the top right which would balance the image.
I do however agree with your comment that when you flip horizontally crop and then flip back again it is also a pleasing and more balanced image.
I am going to try this out on some of my images to see if it improves things.
Cheers,
Simon.
Comment by Simonhi — 15 November, 2010 @ 1:32 pm
Hi Simon,
I’ve got another compositional technique to discuss tomorrow perhaps.
But I cover a lot of this stuff on my workshops and I’ve often brought up the subject of how we in the west read from left to right. It makes me wonder just how images from the west are interpreted in the east.
Michael Kenna has a big audience in Japan where he seems to spend a lot of time now. So I wonder how his images are interpreted. Perhaps there is nothing in this theory of ‘left to right’. But it’s interesting to think that a western photographer has a big market for his images in the east.
Certainly, composition is mostly about how our minds ‘interpret’. I’ve learned over the years that our eyes can be deceived, or ‘encouraged’ to look at certain parts of the scene due to the relationship between dark and bright tones in a scene and their placement.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 15 November, 2010 @ 3:30 pm
With the 3:2 frame orientated to portrait mode and used with a wide lens, it seems to me that you often get a strange perspective effect.
The bottom of the frame is too large and almost seems to “bend” downwards as if there was a crease across the bottom inch of the frame. I find it disturbing and much prefer the squatter format for portrait mode landscapes.
Your first version is suitably squat and suffers non of the distortion, so that’s not an issue but the sweeping curve does remind me a bit of the kind of compositions you get with 3:2. I wonder if it’s this subtle reminder of 3:2 that is the issue rather than a lack of balance?
Comment by Dave Millier — 15 November, 2010 @ 9:06 pm
Hi,
The ‘crease’ you speak of with 3:2 aspect ratio in portrait mode is to do with the over-use of ultra wide angle lenses.
Years ago, 24mm was considered a bit ‘racey’ as a wide angle lens in full frame, and 28mm was considered the norm. We’re now in a position where people are shooting 17mm in 3:2 full frame and it looks overly distorted.
And the magazines are pushing ultra wides on everyone. I’ve always got someone on my courses with a 12mm lens when they haven’t mastered shooting ‘normal’ wide angle lenses.
I disagree with your last statement. Look again at the left and right of the picture. It’s more balanced and the lead in curve you mention was shot with a 24mm equivalent lens, which does not suffer from the ‘crease’ effect you mention.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 16 November, 2010 @ 12:47 am