10+ Rules and Tips about Photography Composition for Beginners

1. Follow Your Eye

When you see a picture of the crashing waves, how your eyes react to the scene? Well, most people’s eyes will move from top to bottom, and left to right. You can use the movement of the eye into photography composition too.

2. Focus on the Subject

You need to frame the image around your subject to emphasize, isolate, highlight and identify it. In another aspect, you should remove distractions from your photograph to prevent detracting. By taking way the not important things from the image, the main subject can grab more attention.

3. Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is mentioned in many photography composition blogs. Briefly, you can divide the photograph into 9 equal rectangles, which are 3 across and 3 down. Some cameras can display the overlaid grid in the live view mode already. The main foreground subject can be balanced along the lines or the position where the lines intersect.

4. Position and Viewpoint

In spite of taking pictures from the eye level, you can consider to shoot from the higher or lower place. Furthermore, you can take a photo from the side, back, close or far distance to get different compositions.

5. Foreground Interest and Depth

You can add a sense of depth to the scene to strength the point. As you know, the common photographs are 2D. You can use foreground interest in the frame to add a 3D feel. In addition, you can create depth in photography composition to show the foreground, middle ground and background. Overlapping is also a good way to emphasize the depth in a varying distance.

6. Background

A busy background cannot bring you the compact in a short time. If you don’t want to distract or detract the subject of your photograph, you can take a shot with a plain and unobtrusive background. An uncomplicated background is the principles of composition in photography. You can also crop or zoom in the certain part of the subject to show more details.

7. Frame Scene with Frame

There are many natural and artificial frames you can use, such as arches, holes, etc. You can place frames around the edge of the composition to isolate the main subject. As a result, you can get a focused image easily.

8. Balancing Elements

Just place the main subject to the center. This can be included into the photography composition rule of thirds. Your photograph will not be as “weight” as before. Meanwhile, you can use some less important objects to make the picture not too empty.

9. Leading Lines

Leading lines refer to paths, walls, patterns and others that can lead viewers to the main subject. But leading lines are not always in straight in the landscape photography composition, as well as other types. You can enhance the composition of your image with the leading lines in diagonal, curvy, zigzag, radial and other creative directions.

10. Rule of Odd Numbers

Have you found that an odd number of subjects in photography are more eye-catching than the even number subjects? You can use the odd photography composition guideline to make the picture look good. Well, it may not work if there are too many people in a scene, like a wedding.

11. Natural Abilities

It may not seem to be a persuasive photography composition tip. But it is true that some people have the compositional ability by talent or training. If your subconscious tells you that the composition looks good in the viewfinder, you can release the shutter to record the moment.