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Composing the picture

So, you’ve got a photo of yourself – reasonable sharp, in focus, background slightly blurred, light and colours just right… and you being the good looking person straight in the middle of the picture. But could you have done better?

Well, let’s look at composing the pictures.

Yes, sometimes it serves the purpose to have you dead-centre in the photo. But you can create a more powerful image, if you apply a few rules, like the rule of thirds. This is one of the simple composition tricks, which helps you produce a more dynamic picture. And it’s simple to apply. Imagine two vertical lines splitting the picture into three equal parts. Now imagine two horizontal lines splitting the picture into three equal parts. Instead of positioning the subject in the middle of the picture, place him or her on one of the lines, or at a point where two lines meet. This usually creates a more dynamic picture – but do experiment yourself!

You can even cheat a bit with this – instead of making a new picture, you can take an existing one and crop it a picture editing software to match the desired format.

Another very easy way of adding impact is to move closer to the subject when taking the picture. Let the person fill the whole frame, rather than leaving a lot of space around him or her. This will focus the viewer on the subject. Of course, as always, the use of this technique depends on circumstances. Sometimes you want to keep more of the background. Even here, you can cheat a little bit, by cropping the photo in a picture editing software – but beware of the loss of quality in the picture, as you are making it smaller.

Yet another way of adding impact is called framing. For example, having the subject stand in the doorway could make the picture more interesting. Or having something in the foreground, between you and the subject, creating a frame for the sides of the picture (for example two trees on both side of the subject, an open gate in a wall, an opening in shrubbery through which the subject can be seen, etc). Use your imagination and any opportunities available! If the frame is not too distracting, it will add a lot of impact to the picture.

When taking full length photos of people, keep in mind that it’s not a good idea to keep parts of the body (legs, arms, half of head) off the picture – this will then be extremely distracting for the viewer. This also applies if you take a picture of the upper part of the body – you don’t want to exclude the arms and hands. When photographing the face, try to not include too much beyond the face – i.e. shoulders are OK, but not too much of the arms. Of course, you might include the hands in the picture – for example the subject might be touching her hair or cheek.

One final tip on composition: most people hold their camera at eye level when taking pictures. However, you might consider doing something different now and then. Many professional fashion photographers actually hold the camera at waist level, rather than higher up. By lowering the viewpoint, you can get less distortion in the picture, especially if taking a full length photo.

The distortion also depends a little bit on whether you use the widest angle of your lens or whether you have fully zoomed in. If you look through the celebrity magazines, many of the red carpet snapshots look a bit weird, with the star’s head and upper body appearing slightly larger than they should, and her legs somehow un-proportionally short. This is because the reporters have used a wide angle lens and also held the camera really high (perhaps to get the shoot over the heads of other paparazzi?).

Camera Handling

A lot of pictures are ruined because the person taking the photo is not handling the camera correctly. You might have a point-and-shoot or an advanced professional camera – but same basic consideration still apply.

Keep the camera steady – lot of pictures are taken with one hand, but this significantly increases the chances of getting a blurry picture. Hold your camera with two hands, and if needed, support it against something steady – a wall, table, lamp post, etc. Or you could even lean against some support yourself – this also helps. The less light you have and the more you have zoomed towards the subject, the more steady the camera has to be.

Make sure that the subject is standing still – the chances of getting the picture right increase, especially in low light. Using the flash helps to capture the pictures with less chance of blurriness but this has its own disadvantages, as already discussed.

Also, make sure the camera has focused properly before you fully press the shutter button. Usually the camera will have some sort of a signal (noise, or green dot on a screen) to indicate that the auto focus has achieved lock. Make use of this.

The less expensive cameras might have some delay between the shutter button being pressed and the picture being taken – if you want to capture a specific moment or expression, then it’s important to remember this delay and for the subject to hold the same position or expression just a moment longer.

Digital cameras also have to take into account something called white balance. Usually this is sorted out automatically, but it does not always work. The pictures then look too yellow or blue – check your camera instructions on how to set the correct white balance.

In fact – it’s always good idea to read through your camera instructions about the different settings. It might be a bit boring, but it could help you take the best possible picture or at least save a lot of work in the computer afterwards!