Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Chapter 2. Pointing, Shooting, and Basic Composition

If your eyes are bleeding from the technical underbrush of Chapter 1, switch on your right brain. This chapter has little to do with electronics and everything to do with the more artful side of photography—composition.

What follows are techniques that photographers have been using for years to create good pictures regardless of the camera type. These time-honored secrets do wonderful things for digital imaging too. Good composition is essential whether you’re using a $200 pocket digicam or a $3,000 professional camera. When you apply the deceptively simple suggestions in this chapter, you’ll take better pictures (and enjoy taking them even more).

First, a few words about composition.

Composition Explained

Composition is the arrangement of your picture: the interplay between foreground and background, the way the subject fills the frame, the way the parts of the picture relate to each other, and so on. Before pressing the shutter, veteran photographers compose pictures by asking themselves a few questions:

Will the shot be clearer, better, or more interesting if you move closer? What about walking around to the other side of the action, or zooming in slightly, or letting tall grass fill the foreground? Would the picture be more interesting if it were framed by horizontal, vertical, or diagonal structures (such as branches, pillars, or a road stretching away)?

It’s easy to think, “Hey, it’s a picture, not a painting—I have to shoot ...