Digital Photography Composition For Dummies

instead.

When you create a composition with no sharp focus, keep in mind that you'll still have a focal point or a main subject. The subject's story is going to be told through lines, shapes, and colors, but you lose the elements of texture, fine lines, and literal details. Basically you show the subject's essence, so make sure it's interesting. Throwing any old composition out of focus and calling it art usually is a mistake and won't receive positive reviews.

Because you have fewer elements to work with in a soft composition, you have to pay extra careful attention to the ones you do have. Here are the elements to consider:

Lines: Your lines are softened but will still work as leading guides, telling a viewer where to look in the composition. Finer lines may be lost, which simplifies the composition and draws more attention to the bolder lines. Make sure your lines don't take away from your composition in any way.

Shapes: Your shapes contain less detail and become very basic. However, they play a major role in your photo. If the shapes aren't interesting, you have no reason to create this kind of image. Smoother shapes work better in soft compositions than rigid shapes.

' Colors: Colors work as the strongest element in soft compositions. Because color appeals to people, it's used in abstract art, interior design, and fashion to create compositions. If you can create an interesting composition of color, you don't need sharp focus to tell a story.

Reinforce your subject as the focal point in a soft composition by keeping in mind elements like contrast, compositional placement, and size. Just because you don't have the subject in focus doesn't mean you can't cause people to concentrate on it as the subject.

In Figure 12–11,1 chose not to focus on anything in order to create a soft composition. The shapes in the composition are beautiful, the subject is recognizable even without detail, and the softness helps give a dream-like sense. I used color, contrast, and leading lines to reveal my subject as the focal point.

50mm, 1/125sec.,f/2.5,50

Figure 12–11: Soft compositions provide more feeling and less detail about a subject.

Making a digital pinhole camera

Back when I developed images in the darkroom, I would sometimes spend long periods of time waiting for images to fix and dry. One way that I used to pass some of the time was to create a pinhole camera from a box. A pinhole camera'is a simple light-proof camera that has no lens. A small hole serves as the aperture. These cameras are used mainly for fun and are based on the designs of the first cameras ever invented. Images created with a pinhole camera are soft in focus and have dark edges. These images are known as vignettes, and they serve mainly artistic and personal purposes and provide somewhat unpredictable results.

I don't make pinhole cameras anymore because I don't have a darkroom. However, I discovered that I could create a pinhole camera out of my digital camera, and I have been having fun with it ever since. To make a pinhole camera out of your digital camera, simply poke a tiny pinhole right in the center of the body cap to your digital SLR (the body cap is the piece that covers the camera body when you don't have a lens in place). You can keep a piece of tape over the hole whenever it isn't in use.

Now you can put your camera out just like the boxes I used to create. When you open the shutter, light from the pinhole exposes onto the digital sensor. With the convenience of digital photography, you can see your results instantly after the shot is complete rather than having to waitforthe images to develop.

Part IV. Composition in Action

In this part.

Composing a portrait is much different from composing a shot of a skyscraper or mountain. So, in this part of the book, I take you through the special considerations of shooting a range of common subjects. You find out about the complexities of photographing people and the unique concerns that arise when you're shooting in nature. I tell you about how to effectively compose still-life photos as well as photos of moving subjects, like trains or your kid playing soccer. And if artsy photos and composites are your thing, I show you how to create those, too. Finally, I delve into the subject of enhancing your compositions by using photo-editing software in postproduction.

Chapter 13. Showing People in Their Best Light

In This Chapter

Revealing a person's story

Creating candid and posed portraits

Working with group shots

Looking into fashion photography

People may be the most common photographic subject in the world. After V all, people are the ones controlling the cameras, and a certain level of vanity is and always will be associated with photography. Folks enjoy seeing themselves in pictures; it gives them an opportunity to see what they look like to other people. However, nobody enjoys seeing a photograph in which they look bad. Some go as far as to say they don't like having their picture taken, but usually that means they feel that the results will be bad. How wrong! Anyone can look beautiful or handsome in a portrait.

On the other hand, some people relish their time in front of a camera. I've had friends who handed off their cameras at every area of interest so I could take a picture of them. When you look through those photos, you notice not only that these people are in every picture, but that they also pose the same way every time. They're trying to look good for the camera. The problem is that they're not the ones looking through the viewfinder.

As a photographer of people, your job is to direct them so they look their best. (You do this in part by choosing the right perspective, which I talk about in Chapter 8.) This mission is especially true in portrait and fashion photography. So, in this chapter, I guide you in your quest by showing you the best ways to capture candid and posed portraits of individuals and groups. I also include a section on fashion photography.

Shooting a Person's Essence in Portraits

Unless you work for the DMV or the police department, you're probably looking to draw something out of your subjects when taking their portraits. A successful portrait can reveal so many different things. For example, it can uncover a certain aspect of a person's personality or tell viewers what the person does for a living. It also can express a difficult time someone is experiencing or create an iconic representation of them. An iconic portrait typically represents a recognizable person during a recognizable time period. (Think Marilyn Monroe with her dress swirling up around her as she stands over a sidewalk grate.) The image itself becomes symbolic of what that person and others like them stood for.