composition cheats
point of interest
All images should have a main point of interest. This could be anything from a tree to a rock, a building, a person and so on. The key is to compose the scene in a way that makes the point of interest stand out. This way, it becomes the first thing that draws the viewer’s eye.
As a rule it’s especially useful for landscape photography, as even a scene that appears beautiful to the eye can look bland without a point of interest. Here the stormy seas and grey skies have atmosphere, but there’s little to hold the attention and draw the eye. So to create a point of interest, we stepped in front of the camera ourselves.
To add to the mood we’ve also used a tripod and a six-stop neutral density filter, which allows us to extend the shutter speed to 2 secs, resulting in some slick blurred motion over the water.
leading line
The compositional technique of ‘leading lines’ involves framing the scene to include natural lines that run through the image. This could be a road, a wall, a river or any other feature that forms a line.
These lines can help to provide shape and structure to the composition by leading the eye through the scene. Ideally, the lines will head towards the point of interest in the shot. But what if there’s no leading line to be found? Well, you could make our own! Here we’ve used a piece of driftwood – found further down the shore – to form a naturallooking leading line. By using a wide angle lens and a low camera angle, we’re able to compose the wood in the lower half of the frame and exaggerate the perspective, creating a line that leads the eye towards the waterfall in the distance.