Composition - the focus of this entire chapter - is, in a nutshell, about arranging what’s within the four walls of the photo.

A good composition, that quickly leads our eye to the most interesting or significant part of the image, can be the difference between an average photo and one that wows. And, not to be too alarmist, but a poor composition can ruin a photo, regardless of how amazing the subject is!

In these ten lessons ahead, we’re going to learn how to best arrange objects in the frame, starting with the some background theory. Stick with me here because although we’re not talking explicitly about strategies and techniques at this stage - we are setting the foundation for it. We’re learning the why, which makes the how that much easier.

Why are compositional techniques so critical to photography?

2. 2D IMages vs 3D worlds

Have you ever felt disappointed when the photo you took looked nothing like the scene you remembered?

If so, it’s probably due to the different ways we see the world when we are standing there versus when those same scenes are compressed into a flat two-dimensional image.

Understanding these differences (how we look at 2D images and our 3D world) is the foundation for understanding why and how composition techniques work.

Here’s a quick activity to introduce the key difference.

Where’s Wally?

The next time you’re outside, stand under a large tree and look up.
Find something that attracts your attention (your ‘Wally’).
Take a photo of it without using a zoom function i.e. a photo that represents your field of vision in that moment.
Then, try to find this ‘Wally’ in the picture on your screen.

If you’re not close to nature, or it’s late at night - let me do this for you.

Standing under a tree by a lake the most interesting object in my field of vision was:

Below is a pretty close representation of my view of the tree. Can you find that same shiny seed - the one that was glaringly obvious in real time?

Take a few seconds to search for it before moving the slider to the right.

What’s happening here?

3. Selective Attention

Have you ever heard of selective attention?

When I looked at the tree, in the example above, I was captivated by that shiny seed and after it became my focus of attention, I sort of ‘filtered out’ the thousands of others pieces of information surrounding it.

As we live our day-to-day lives, our eyes are constantly, and automatically doing exactly this: zooming in on what’s important, shifting most of our focus there, while simultaneously filtering out the information we don’t need.

This highly complex task is called ‘selective attention’, and it’s switched on all day, every day!

And thank goodness selective attention is always on - as otherwise we’d be overwhelmed trying to process the enormous amount of information that constantly bombards our senses.

Try it yourself!
Selective Attention Activities

Find one thing in your field of vision right now and focus on it for 3 seconds (e.g., a book, pot plant, pen…). And when I say focus - I mean give it all your attention. Note the colours, read any text if there is any, notice any light that’s reflecting off it. It’s a super simple task, so do this now before reading on.

Now, look at that same object again, but this time try to focus not only on your chosen object but also ALL of the other items that are concurrently in your field of vision (possibly hundreds of objects)! Give it a go now.

It’s an impossible task - and feels overwhelming.

Being able to filter out certain elements helps us function effectively in day-to-day life - but unfortunately doesn’t always help us take good photos which we’ll get to soon!

Here are two videos which further demonstrate just how selective our attention is.

The first video is based on the famous demonstration of selective attention by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons (1999) but updated with a twist incase you’ve already seen the original.
The second video is a different take on the same concept.

You’ll need the volume on.

Without sliding right just yet, what catches your eye in the image below?

Maybe you noticed the mirror reflections or the repetitive shapes of the lily pads or the various shades of green...

At the exact moment the photo was taken, the ONLY thing that captured my attention was the snake glistening in the morning sun, as it slithered weightlessly over the lily pads. I couldn’t see anything else.

Still can’t see it? Slide right.

The key point is:

A two-dimensional photo of our field of vision will never replicate our experience of actually being there and what catches our attention - UNLESS we use compositional techniques to show what’s really important to us.

4. Movement and Light

In our day-to-day life (and in addition to seeing selectively) there are two other key differences in the way we view the world compared to when it’s represented in a photo:

1. The slightest of movement attracts our attention.

We’re so quick to notice any movement, even when it’s only in the corner of our eyes. And this is generally a great asset in our day-to-day life, to help us hone in on cars when crossing a street etc (or quickly see snakes on lily-pads)!

However, a moment that was quite dynamic in real life, because of movement, can seem very flat or different when the scene frozen into place - such as in this image below.

2. Our eyes adjust extremely quickly to areas of highlights and shadows.

If you are sitting in dappled light under a tree on a sunny day, you can still clearly see everything around you - even if some objects are lying in patches of sunshine, and others in shade.

However, our camera sensors, unlike our eyes, can’t quickly switch between aforementioned highlights and shadows. Often shadows look much darker when rendered in an image as compared to how we saw them in real-time.

For example, reliving my days of youth, I recently did a Wasgij puzzle. Sun streamed through the open window creating dark bars of shadow across the puzzle. Disclaimer: If you’re about to do ‘WASGIJ: A night at the Opera’, then don’t look at the pictures below which reveal much of the answer.

The photo on the left is tweaked to reflect how the scene looked to me in real time - I could see there was a vague shadow but I could also see everything in the puzzle clearly.

The photo on the right shows the image straight out of camera. It’s not a lighting situation that looks conducive to puzzle solving - or taking good photos.

Let’s see the effect of selective attention and movement in a real-life example.

5. Case-study

Photographer: Busy parent.
Subject: 4 year old daughter in the kitchen.

What do you notice when you look at the photo?

Apart from the girl, did you also notice the coloured cups stacked in the overhead cupboard? The fridge door? The slightly tilted angle of the horizon line?

The photography problem: Due to her selective attention, the photographer probably didn’t pay any attention to the rest of the kitchen, and instead solely focused on her daughter sitting on the kitchen counter. It’s a great moment to photograph, and perfectly timed, but as a viewer, we can’t quickly or easily see what is happening. The beautiful moment is lost to the details of the kitchen.

Below is the same photo but cropped to better reflect what the mum probably ‘saw’:

This new crop now reflects what was important in the moment. We can see the girl much more clearly, in full concentration mode, the nano-second before an egg cracks open. We can also easily surmise, by the surrounding kitchen equipment, what will happen next.

Understanding how selective attention works is important because it gives us a clue into how we need to frame our images to remove the extraneous information (that isn’t important in the moment) - just like our selective attention does for us. The result being photos that better reflect what we really want to capture and remember.

So, if we see selectively in everyday life, how is it different when we look at a photo?

6. How we read 2D images

When we look at a photo, certain aspects instinctively catch our attention. Some of which are very different compared to looking at real-life situations.

Here’s a list of four things that we are immediately drawn to when looking at an image:

Any words or text
Expressions
Faces and in particular, eyes
The brightest part of the image
*(you can find examples of these in the next section below)

Two other things we do when looking at images:

We like to fill in details and are quick to spot anything out of the ordinary
We are inclined to find horizontal images more pleasing as it’s closer to how we see the world (in landscape not portrait orientation) - and we quickly notice if the horizon line isn’t perfectly straight.

BUT THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IS:

When we look at a photo our eyes bounce around the image weighing up all parts as equal.

So, rather than automatically filtering out unimportant information the exact opposite happens and we look at every little detail, i.e., if there’s something in the photo - our eyes will look at it, even if/when it’s not important!