Composition, Visual Design and Photographic Genres
This section covers Composition, Visual Design and Photographic Genres: framing decisions, visual balance, colour harmony and the conventions of portrait, landscape, product, documentary and other genres.
Core rules
- Rule of thirds: place key elements near intersection points; it is a guide, not a law. Centred symmetry works for architecture and formal portraits.
- Leading lines, framing, repetition, pattern and break, negative space and scale create depth and direction.
- Balance visual weight: bright, saturated, sharp or human elements attract attention; counterweight them with tone or space.
- Perspective: move the camera to change near and far relationships; focal length alone does not change perspective.
- Colour harmony: complementary opposites, analogous neighbours and triadic three-way spacing. A dominant colour with an accent is often stronger than equal amounts.
- Genres: portrait uses expression, skin tone and catchlights; landscape uses depth, horizon and foreground; product uses clean background and controlled reflections; documentary uses truthful sequence and context; fashion uses pose, styling and light; macro uses magnification and a controlled focus plane.
- Crop for a purpose; check edges, horizon and headroom.
Worked example
A portrait places the subject dead centre with a bright doorway behind the head. Reasoning: the doorway competes with the face and the centred composition feels static. Move the subject to a third, turn the shoulders, and shift the camera so the doorway becomes a clean background or a leading line. Check that the eyes are the sharpest point and that the background is darker or less saturated than the face. The change is compositional, not a filter.
Traps
- Applying the rule of thirds to every frame and ignoring stronger symmetry or diagonal compositions.
- Leaving a tilted horizon in a landscape.
- Merging the subject with a background line or pole.
- Overcrowding the frame because every element seemed interesting.
- Copying a genre cliché without a brief or audience.