THE BASICS

Achieve balance and form by using these simple techniques in your shots

IDENTIFYING and positioning the main subject, and other focal points, in your image is at the heart of good composition. Get this wrong, and you’ll simply end up with an unbalanced, awkward and unfulfilling image that will never look quite ‘right’.

So here we’ll start with the building blocks of where to place subjects and focal points to help you get better balance, shape and distribution of form in your photos. No single one of these rules and techniques is the ‘golden bullet’ to getting the right balance every time you take a shot, but if you are struggling to find a framing and composition that works, implementing one of these rules can really help you get a shot that looks great, instead of one that is only destined to be deleted.

Remember that before you start using these techniques you’ll first need to decide which elements of the subject you want to include – and, often more importantly, which you can leave out of the frame because they distract from, rather than add to, the image.