Tuesday, November 03, 2009

4 Rules of Composition for Landscape Photography

1. Diagonal Lines

Diagonal-1


Using diagonal lines can be a very effective way of drawing the eye of those viewing an image into it and to the main focal point.

The ‘lines’ need not be actual lines – they could be the shape of a path, a line of trees, a fence, river or any other feature in an image.

Converging lines (two or more lines coming from different parts of an image to a single point) can be all the more effective.


2. Geometric Shapes

Triangle-Composition

By positioning key aspects of a landscape on points of a geometric shape you can help create a balanced composition. Perhaps the most common and easiest way to do this is to use a ‘triangle’ shape between objects in an image with three objects in a frame positioned with one to each side and one more central.

Using Geometric Shapes in this way isn’t something that I’ve done a lot of – but it is one technique to get balance in a shot and if you’re clever, to lead the eye into it (in a similar way to the diagonal lines rule above).

You can see this illustrated (to a point) in the photomontage image to the right.

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