Composition Digital Field Guide

The go-with-you guide for creating strong compositions every time you take a photo

Composition requires purposeful placement of elements within the frame, including backgrounds, foregrounds, main subjects, and much more. It can take years to acquire strong compositional skills. That's where Composition Digital Field Guide comes in. Packed with full-color photos, this handy guide teaches you how to bring together photographic elements to produce photos that are unique, creative, and memorable.

• Addresses the skills required to master the art of good composition when taking digital photos
• Walks you through framing your images carefully, which is the first key step in capturing a strong photograph
• Features hundreds of stunning and inspiring full-color photos of people, wildlife, and landscapes
• Includes the newest feature of the Digital Field Guide series: a removable color checker card to help ensure true color in your photographs

It will be difficult to keep your composition while reading the invaluable advice in Composition Digital Field Guide!

Photo Examples from the Author

Not every shot can be set up, but with pre-planning you can use the rule of thirds to create a balanced shot, even when you don’t know exactly where the subject will be. Shooting a marathon, we knew roughly where the winners would be crossing the finish line. Since they wouldn’t be stopping, there wouldn't be a second chance. I shot the photo in portrait orientation to be able to capture both the runner and the time clock as she crossed the finish line. I tracked the runner as she made it round the last bend and took a series of photos as she came up to and crossed the finish line. You will notice that her head is one third down from the top and one third in from the right. The banner is one third up from the bottom, all using the rule of third compositionally. An added bonus is that the shadows at her feet and her outstretched arms all act as leading lines, drawing the eye into the image and to the runner.

There are patterns everywhere; some are just more obvious than others. These folk with linked hands who are participating in a protest at our local beach formed a regular pattern. What I love about this photo is that this is just a small segment of a larger view, but since the pattern is there and unbroken, it looks as if it could go on forever. There are no breaks, and there are no ending points. Our brains tell us that without more information, we can’t tell when and if the pattern ends.

The use of color by this performance artist was really great. The different white clothes, white makeup and white hair, punctuated by small bursts of red really worked well. There are at least four different shades of white in this image, but see if you can stop your eyes from traveling between the splashes of red. This is an image that needs to be seen in color, and it is the color that really helps create the look and feel overall. Because color can draw and lead the viewers attention, the small red hearts and flowers do a great job of keeping the viewer’s eye inside the image and drawing it back up to the eyes of the performer. Because the colors were so good, I composed the image in tight to fill the frame. Otherwise, you would have been able to see the colors on the wall behind her, which would have detracted for the photograph.

Alan Hess is a commercial photographer specializing in concert and event photography, but his work has covered everything from portraits to products. His concert and backstage images have appeared in numerous online and print publications, and he is the author of three other Digital Field Guides, including the bestselling Exposure Digital Field Guide.