Digital Photography Composition For Dummies

Taking a look Inside: Composing Interior shots

Composing an interior image usually is about giving a sense of space. With these types of images, typically you shoot with a slightly higher angle, which enables you to see over the elements of the room and creates depth and space. Balance also is important. Balance is created when the various elements in a room are positioned in your frame to lead a viewer through the space without getting stuck in one area that's overweighted (containing a dominant amount of detail in comparison to the other areas in the frame). The key is to spread the love.

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Figure 15-8: An exterior image of a house and its landscape.

Here are three excellent ways to add to the sense of space in an interior photo:

Create an interesting foreground, and then lead your viewers through the space in a way that gives them a sense of the architecture and the design. The shapes created by the space itself — furniture, rugs, fixtures, and accessories — can be used to achieve this interesting foreground, or starting point. Then you can lead the viewer's eye into the frame to an area that counters the starting point. Finally, have that area lead to another point of interest and create a flow, which ultimately leads back to the starting point.

In Figure 15-9, Craig Denis used the shape of the bar to lead viewers into the image to an area where guests can lounge. Just above that part of the composition is a shape on the ceiling that mimics that of the bar. This brings your eyes over to the right side of the frame where you can get an idea of the texture of the chairs that are shown on the left side of the frame. In the end, your eyes are brought back to the bar and ideally it leads you back into the image again.

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Figure 15-9: An example of leading viewers from the foreground into the image.

Light your scene to suggest depth. You can light the farthest elements more than the nearer elements to create the sense of depth. Viewers will notice the foreground elements and continuously go to the brighter elements as their eyes move through the scene's space.

Include multiple areas in one composition. By looking through the main area of interest and into another area beyond it, you get the sense that there's more to the story. For example, say you're shooting the master bedroom of a high-end condominium. By opening the bathroom door and choosing a perspective that shows the room in a pleasant way and reveals the bathroom's whirlpool, you're showing viewers that the people who sleep in this room have style and a private, luxury bath.

Lighting is just as important as composition. Lighting interiors can be simple or complex depending on the space and your desired look. To achieve a natural look, shoot during the day and let as much daylight in through the windows as possible. Using a single strobe at a low setting and bouncing it off the ceiling helps to fill in shadow areas and lower the overall contrast. (Chapter 10 provides more on the different types of lights.) This is a minimalist approach and provides good clean results — assuming, of course, you have a decent amount and quality of window light to work with.

Chapter 16. Capturing (Or Stopping) Motion through Photography

In This Chapter

Looking at the main considerations when shooting images with motion

Getting great images of hard-to-capture subjects

When most people think of photography, they think of a process that provides a still, motionless image. But you also can use photography to convey motion, and knowing how to handle moving subjects to achieve the results you want opens up new avenues for your photography. Because your digital sensor has a much stronger reaction to light than its film predecessors, your subjects don't have to have to sit still and wait for the camera to (slowly) capture an image. Shooting at 1/250 second is fast enough to freeze most normal amounts of motion, and most cameras even have the ability to shoot at speeds much faster than that.

Freezing motion and creating sharp images seem to be the most technically correct ways to photograph, but many types of subjects move in a lot of interesting ways. Deciding how to photograph each subject is up to you, and part of that decision is choosing when to eliminate and capture the appearance of motion in your compositions. For example, if you want movement to be a key element in your message and the identity of your subject isn't necessary, adding motion blur could be the way to go. A random businessman walking down the city street in the rain could become even more anonymous with motion blur. The rain would be blurred as well and its visual impact may be increased.

If you're ready to show motion in your photos, you need to know how to successfully capture it so you get the exact look you want in your image. In this chapter, I provide you with all the information you need.

Followinq Compositional Principles When a Subject Isn't Stationary

A subject in motion may cause you to become apprehensive and concerned about your technical performance while shooting an image. And when you become too concerned with technical issues, it's difficult to pay proper attention to your subject and surroundings. But don't worry. Knowing how to use your equipment is the best way to be prepared to achieve great results and make the most out of any situation. (Chapter 3 provides some details to help you discover your equipment.)

The basic rules of composition (see Chapter 5) apply to moving subjects just as they do to stationary subjects. However, trying to capture or convey motion does bring some new challenges. Perhaps the three main elements to think about when shooting moving subjects are getting the subjects in focus, placing them in your frame in the most appropriate way, and determining whether to freeze the motion or to show it. I explain each of these elements in the following sections.

Focusing on moving subjects

Focus is one of the most important compositional elements, and whether you can get a moving subject in focus depends on the methods you use. With a digital SLR, you can either focus manually or you can take advantage of the camera's ability to autofocus.

If you're familiar with focusing manually, and you're confident in your skills, you may succeed using that method. But beware. Using manual focus for moving subjects is risky because there's a lot of room for human error. When you focus manually, you need to take your time and ensure that your focus is exactly where you want it to be. However, by the time you get the focus right on a subject in motion, you may have already missed the shot.

So, taking advantage of autofocus enables you to spend less time thinking of focus and more time concentrating on other aspects of composition and exposure. Consider the two types of autofocus:

One-shot autofocus: You use one-shot autofocus primarily for still subjects. However, you can use this setting while shooting subjects in motion by predetermining where your subject will be, locking the focus on that area by holding the shutter release button down halfway, and then waiting for the subject to enter the area of your focal plane to take the picture. (For more information on focus, see Chapters 3 and 7.)