Composing Great Photos
A Crash Course in Creative Composition
by Wes Kisting
It's cliché, but profoundly true, to say that the photographer, not the camera, makes the picture. Even the fanciest photographic equipment won't produce stunning photography unless the photographer has a keen eye for visually pleasing or interesting arrangements. If you really want to capture remarkable paddling photography, it pays to experiment with composition.
Although I'm no expert in photographic composition, trial and error has taught me a lot about varying the mood and impact of my pictures. Here, I'll share some of the techniques I've learned over the years. To keep this article focused on the impact of photographic composition (rather than on the inherent appeal of exotic paddling destinations), I've deliberately chosen to illustrate each technique with sample pictures shot in my own backyard. While enrolling in a photography class or reading books about photography can be extremely helpful, I think there's no better way to learn "good" photography than to take regular walks in your own backyard (or a nearby park), looking for ways to transform the ordinary, mundane elements of a familiar landscape into striking images.
Check back often, as this list of tips and techniques is sure to grow.
Dramatic Lighting Tricks
Most people realize that light changes in color and intensity throughout the day, and that pictures captured at different times of day will result in very different "moods." But novice photographers often overlook the fact that light also comes from specific sources (the sun, a flashlight, a campfire, or reflective surfaces like water, snow, or sand) which can be moved in or out of the frame to create different effects.
Backlighting
One of those effects is backlighting, in which you position the light source (usually the sun) directly behind your photographic subject in order to create a warm "halo" effect which gives added interest to the scene and also contributes an impression of heat or fire to the background. There are many effective ways to employ backlighting, but perhaps one of the most familiar applications involves positioning the sun or some other bright light source behind a blonde-haired subject (usually a woman or young girl), illuminating the blonde color of the hair to create a dramatic, often angelic, effect.
Here, I've positioned the late evening sun to provide backlighting behind an ordinary thistle. The warm red and gold hues complement the purple color of the thistle nicely, and help to capture an impression of heat befitting to the warm evening.
Since the backlighting technique requires you to shoot toward the sun or another bright light source, take care not to damage your eyes through the viewfinder while composing the shot. You can vary the intensity of the effect by varying exposure time, but if the backlighting is significantly brighter than your subject, you will likely need to use fill flash (see below) or brighten the subject later with photo-editing software to reduce or eliminate the silhouette effect. See my article Coping with Highlights and Shadows for a brief overview of this process.
Silhouettes
At times, it may be easier to capture a desired mood by deliberately downplaying the details of the scene so that the viewer's attention is instead drawn to the ambient light and bold shapes. This is especially true when you're photographing a potentially-attractive setting which includes unsightly objects such as dilapidated houses, rusted automobiles, dead animal carcasses, scorched patches of earth, trash, debris, or other unsightly features. In those cases, the silhouette technique can work miracles.
To the right, I've used the silhouetting technique to preserve the gorgeous colors of the evening sky, but to erase the unsightly presence of a paved road, an industrial power transfomer, and a small house nestled among the trees. As a result, the image successfully preserves the quiet, lonely feeling of the evening. Without the silhouette effect, the presence of the small house and the road would have ruined the sense of solitude I wanted to capture. With the silhouette effect, however, the undesirable elements have been erased from the viewer's concern, while the power lines now help to direct the viewer's eye toward the stunning horizon.
To create silhouettes, aim your camera lens at the sky just a little off to one side of the sun, without including the sun in the frame. Lock the exposure settings, then recompose the shot as desired and snap the picture. Your camera will expose properly for the sky, while significantly darker objects will get "blown" to flat black (or close to it). On a bright day, this technique may not work for distant objects because there will be too much ambient light falling on them, but most nearby objects should produce successful silhouettes as long as you are shooting toward (not away from) the sun. Late in the evening, when the ambient light is low, even distant objects should produce silhouettes against the sky.
Here is another example which employs an interesting variation on the silhouette effect. After setting the exposure to produce a silhouette, I positioned the camera so that light reflecting off the vinyl siding of this apartment building would restore some of the basic detail. At a normal exposure, this apartment building would look plain and boring, but here the reflection off the siding creates a radiant glow with sharply defined lines which pull the viewer's eye toward the dramatic sky of a receding thunderstorm.
The silhouette effect can also be used on people, animals, flowers, vehicles, sculptures, or any other solid object. And it doesn't necessarily require bright sunlight: I've managed to capture terrific silhouettes in moonlight and firelight also. However you use it, keep in mind that the silhouette effect works best when it is used to accentuate bold shapes, striking patterns, or dramatic skies.
Lens Flare / Starburst Effect
Another striking technique can be achieved by deliberately introducing a controlled amount of lens flare to produce a "starburst" effect. This is accomplished by letting a bright light source (usually the sun) intrude slightly into one corner of the frame. The resulting effect will intensify the general impression of brightness across the whole scene. This technique works especially well in bright, clear sunlight, but I have also used it successfully to add impact to photos of sunrises or sunsets.
To the right is a sample image of my backyard. To achieve this effect, I zoomed in on the landscape, locked the exposure settings, zoomed back out to a wide focal length, repositioned the shot so the sun was just barely touching the upper edge of the frame, and then took the shot. Presto! An instant starburst effect without a starburst filter! Notably, the aperture you choose will affect the results. I get best results using small apertures (usually f/22). This picture was captured with my Nikon D50 set to ISO 200, f/22 for 1/320 sec. (-0.7 EV), using the 18mm focal length of my 18-55mm lens. This yielded a correct exposure for the sky, then I brightened the grassy landscape later in Adobe Photoshop.
Since you're shooting fairly close to the sun, take care not to damage your eyes by staring directly into its light through the viewfinder. At times, you may find that this technique yields an unacceptable level of blown highlights or washed out color in the sky. If that happens, you can reduce exposure to compensate for the bright light and preserve the color of the sky, then use a photo-editing program to restore the brightness of the landscape later. See my article Coping with Highlights and Shadows for a brief overview of this process.
Frame of Reference: Scale & Grandeur
Novice photographers tend to think of landscape photography in oversimplified terms: just attach a wide-angle lens, point the camera at the landscape, make sure the horizon is level, and shoot, right? Well, no—not exactly. While this process will certainly yield a picture of the landscape, it frequently produces disappointing images which lack the mood, complexity, and grandeur of the original scene.
Without the help of good composition, cameras have an annoying tendency to flatten and diminish the grandeur of landscapes—partly because cameras are more limited than the human eye, and partly because the resulting image is, of course, smaller than the original scene and constrained to fit within the edges of the frame. Fortunately, there's a very simple, tried-and-true technique which helps to preserve the depth, expansiveness, and intensity of a majestic landscape. All you need to do is incorporate a familiar frame of reference into the foreground.
To see how this technique works, first take a look at this picture from my backyard. Even though the early morning fog helps to accentuate the depth of the landscape, the scene still looks disappointingly flat and the original warmth of the morning light has been overpowered, visually, by the cooler color of the fog. It's not bad, but it looks very dull. Although it shows a clear view of my backyard, it certainly doesn't convey an accurate impression of what it felt like to stand there in the morning light gazing out over the dreamy, hazy landscape.
Part of the problem is that the green hues of the weeds have been muted by the ambient red and gold hues of the sunrise, making the landscape look almost dull brown in color. The faint band of golden color along the horizon helps to make up for some of this loss of color, but the top and bottom third of the image (a full two-thirds of the frame!) look dull and unremarkable. In fact, the only "interesting" visual elements here are the soft gradation of colors along the horizon and the fog itself.
The perspective also looks wrong: Even though I was standing on a hill quite a bit higher than the fog-laden valley, there is little or no impression of height in this image. And, of course, it's difficult to judge the scale: The tall tree near the left of the frame could be ten feet tall or thirty feet tall; the clumps of leaves beside it could be nearby shrubs, or they could be the tops of trees down in the valley—there's no convenient way to tell. That's because there's no familiar, nearby object in the frame to use as a frame of reference for judging size and distance.
Now check out what happens when I take a dozen steps back and widen my angle to include the sunlit sunflower standing in the foreground:
Suddenly, the warmth of the morning light comes across extremely well and the whole scene appears larger and more expansive, with a much more effective impression of wide open space. That's because the sunflower in the foreground acts as a familiar frame of reference to help clarify the relative scale and depth of the rest of the landscape. Also, since the sun had not yet risen high enough in the sky for its warm light to fall directly on the surrounding landscape, the taller sunflower helps to catch the lateral rays of sunlight and reflect them into the frame.
Better yet, the nearness of the sunflower makes the viewer feel more "connected" to a specific location in the landscape, as if the viewer is standing right next to me (and the sunflower) while I snap the picture, rather than hovering detached above the landscape the way it seems in the first picture. Collectively, these effects add up to make a tremendous difference in the impact of the scene—and all thanks to the simple addition of a sunflower!
The "Overhanging Branch" Method
Perhaps the most common way that photographers incorporate a frame of reference into the foreground is by using the clichéd "overhanging branch" technique. I'm sure you've seen the type of picture I mean: the camera is positioned so that an overhanging branch from a nearby tree protrudes into the frame to create a sense of depth and scale, much as the sunflower does in my picture above. It may be clichéd, but it works well, and when you're shooting landscape photography, trees with suitable overhanging branches are usually in ample supply.
Here is a very basic, yet effective use of the "overhanging branch" technique:
And here, at right, is a much more sophisticated version of the "overhanging branch" technique. In this case, I've gone well beyond merely showing an overhanging branch or two, to include whole tree trunks and my wife as well. In fact, the foreground takes up more of the frame than the background it is used to accentuate. As a result, these foreground elements not only help to clarify the scale and distance of the landscape in the background, but also tell a story that makes the viewer feel like part of the experience.
My point is that the frame of reference you choose to put in the foreground need not be limited to trees and flowers. You can also use rocks, fences, people, kayaks, tents, animals, insects, or any other familiar, nearby object as a frame of reference to accentuate the scale of the landscape. Furthermore, you can make these objects as large or small (and as intrusive or unintrusive) in the scene as you like. Let creativity be your guide.
To ensure you capture sharp detail from both the foreground object and the landscape, use a fairly small aperture (f/18 or smaller) and focus on the foreground object. If your aperture is kept small (to ensure a large depth-of-field), the background should also come out in focus, just as it does in each of the pictures above. If you're using a point-and-shoot camera which does not allow control of the aperture, use your camera's pre-set "landscape" mode and focus on the foreground object.
Foreground Focus / Background Ambience
Sometimes, your foreground object will be more interesting than the details of the landscape, yet you may still wish to preserve the atmospheric ambience of the scene. In those cases, you can open up the aperture (typically f/9 or larger) to blur the background and force the foreground object to "pop" out at the viewer's attention. With a large aperture (to ensure shallow depth-of-field), you should be able to make the background come out clear enough to preserve a sense of mood, yet blurry enough to prevent it from distracting the viewer's attention away from your foreground object. If you're using a point-and-shoot camera which does not allow control of the aperture, use your camera's pre-set "portrait" mode and focus on the foreground object. It won't always work properly for this effect, but often it does.
Here's a sample picture which features a sharply-defined grasshopper seated atop a brilliant sunflower in the foreground, while maintaining just enough clarity in the background to preserve the bright, sunny atmosphere, the white puffy clouds, and the striking blue sky. I captured this shot with my Nikon D50, exposed at ISO 200, f/5.6 for 1/1250 sec., using the 26mm focal length of my 18-55mm lens.
Here's another example featuring a praying mantis in front of a rocky hillside. The blurry background keeps the viewer's attention on the mantis, which is well camoflauged amid the stems of the wildflowers. The lighting and shadows also make it clear that this shot was captured much later in the evening than the shot of the grasshopper above, thereby preserving the serene mood. I captured this shot with my Nikon D50, exposed at ISO 400, f/5.6 for 1/800 sec., using the 20mm focal length of my 18-55mm lens.
What I love about this technique is the very effective way it locks the viewer's attention on a specific object and preserves the atmospheric mood, without requiring you to position your subject right in the center of the picture. It also prevents the image from looking too "busy" or confusing to the eye.
Extreme Close-Ups
Wide-angle landscape photography isn't the only way to capture a strong impression of your environment. Sometimes, extreme close-ups can be just as effective—not as substitutes, but as complements to wider shots. Think of your pictures as all working together to tell a story: If wide-angle shots convey the broad impression of the places you've visited, close-ups help to fill in the details so that your viewer can really experience the environment you've photographed. The key is to find details in the environment that really stand out: interesting textures, unique vegetation, colorful pebbles or shells, exotic insects, unusual formations or patterns in the sand—anything that helps to create a more vivid or intimate sense of place.
To the right, I've snapped a photo of some long strands of thorns I found dangling from a vine-covered tree. The tiny vines around the thorns had an impressive, jewelry-like intricacy which made for an interesting image. Close-up shots like this can make an excellent addition to a scrapbook or slideshow because they not only help to break up the monotony of endless wide-angle shots, but also allow the viewer to get a sense of the intimate details of the landscape. In this case, even though you can't see the surrounding trees, the shadows on the thorns help to convey the accurate impression that this scene was captured in the woods.
In the shot below, I've captured a monarch sucking nectar from one of the unusually large sunflower bulbs which grow in my backyard. In this case, I composed the shot so that the evening sunlight would reflect off the monarch's long proboscis, causing it to catch the eye. I also pulled in close enough that you can see the powdery texture of the colors on the wings. Again, even though you can't see the surrounding landscape, you can see an amazing amount of detail here, and the golden cast of the evening light conveys a distinct mood. Don't you feel like you could just lean in and smell the flowers or touch the butterfly? Wonderful! That's exactly how your pictures should make you feel!
To achieve crisp close-up shots like these, you don't need a macro lens. I just used the 55mm focal length of my standard 18-55mm lens and positioned the camera as close to the subject as possible (the minimum focus distance required for this lens is about one foot). With a little practice and a fast shutter speed, you should be able to capture razor-sharp close-ups. Of course, if you're going to photograph skittish insects like monarchs, you'll also need a lot of patience and stealth, so it's probably smart to practice your close-up skills on inanimate objects first.
Fill Flash
Many people think camera flashes are strictly for indoor or low-light settings, but the truth is that they can be just as useful for shooting in bright, sunny conditions. That's because the subjects you choose to shoot won't always be conveniently arranged so that the sunlight falls upon them just right. Often, you will find yourself shooting toward the sun, or photographing shaded subjects against a bright background. In those cases, you may be able to prevent undesirable silhouetting by using your camera's flash to "fill in" the shadowy areas (a.k.a. "fill flash").
The three pictures below show the same scene at exactly the same exposure. The only difference between them is that in the second picture, I used my camera's built-in flash to fill in the silhouetted sign. Then, in the third picture, I lowered the brightness levels of the sign face in Adobe Photoshop to achieve a more accurate balance of light.
Fill flash tends to be most useful when shooting mid-day images of people (or objects) sitting in the shade, or when photographing subjects which are backlit by the rising or setting sun. Many digital cameras include a "shade" setting which adjusts the white balance so that fill flash will yield healthy-looking skin tones and warm colors, instead of the "washed out" look that flashes typically produce.
When using fill flash, it is important to keep in mind that fill flash works best for nearby people or objects which are perpendicular to the camera lens. Otherwise, you will see "light fall off" wherever large objects (like the ground) stretch away from the flash, typically resulting in a very artificial-looking image.
The picture at right shows light fall off due to a poor use of fill flash: the rocky foreground is much brighter than the rocks further away from the camera. Also, my dog's shadow falls in the wrong direction (toward the sun, instead of away from it). These effects, though subtle, ruin the impression of realism and make it clear that a flash has been used to light the scene. These problems could have been easily prevented by positioning the camera lower and angling the lens slightly upward to exclude the ground from the frame.
Experimentation and Creativity
These simple creative techniques should help you think about composition on a more sophisticated level, but they won't guarantee great pictures. If you really want to excel at capturing stunning photos, you need to practice regularly. Try to get in the habit of taking regular "outings" into your backyard to develop, hone, and maintain your skills. In the end, trial and error will be your best guide to what works and what doesn't, and the more you practice, the better prepared you'll be to capture the sights and experiences which arise on your paddling trips.
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