Digital Camera Master

Now that I’ve spent the last post telling you what the rules of composition actually are, we can talk a little about how to ignore them.

Don’t get me wrong—I love the rules of composition and I think you should follow them.After you become comfortable with concepts like the rule of thirds and filling the frame with the focal point, however, you’ll find that you can take even better pictures by bending or breaking those same rules. This is an area of photography that is best experimented with and learned on your own, but here are a few pointers to help you get started:

Change your perspective
Technically, we’re not breaking any rules of composition here, but this is something that few people think about, yet it can have a profound impact on the quality of your photos. Simply put, experiment with different ways to see the same scene. Try taking your picture by holding the camera horizontally, and then see how you might frame the picture by turning the camera vertically. Experiment and don’t be afraid to try something even if no one else thinks it’s a good idea. Get low to the ground or stand up on a chair or table to get a higher perspective on the same scene. You have a lot of options: try them.

Ignore symmetry
Sure, symmetry is great, but just as often as symmetry works well in a photograph, I have found you can get an even better image if you intentionally skew the photo to strip out the symmetry. When the viewer expects symmetry and doesn’t get it, you have introduced tension and drama into an image. And that’s not bad, especially if all you’ve done is photograph some road, train track, or river.

Surprise the viewer
If you’ve seen one landscape, you’ve seen them all. That’s not really true, but it can sometimes seem that way. Go for the unusual by framing your picture in a totally unexpected way. One of my favorite tricks is shooting landscapes through the side view mirror of a car.

Use several focal points
While most pictures rely on just one or two focal points, sometimes you need even more, especially when you’re shooting a picture like a family portrait. If you’re taking a picture with several people in it, you can often overcome a cluttered look by arranging the subjects into a geometric pattern. If the subjects’ heads form a triangle shape, for instance, you have introduced order into the photo despite the fact that there are a lot of people in it.