Photography with Imre Z. Balint: Episode 4 – Composition

Well I'm a day late with episode four's release, but better late than never! I'm quite pleased with how it turned out too. There are two additional things I would like to add though. The first is really simple; to become "good" at composing your photographs, it takes practice and usually a lot of it. For some people it may come naturally, for others, it might take some getting used to. Once you get the hang of it and you become more critical of your own work (being able to pick it apart, what makes it good/bad) it'll become a cakewalk. But until then, I would recommend joining various photography forums where you can post your work for critique. Here are a few I visit:

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/
http://forums.steves-digicams.com/
http://forums.popphoto.com/

Keep in mind too the old saying, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", as some people may love your photo, other's not so much. You'll also likely get many good critiques, along with many bad ones, so consider each thoughtfully. Generally, my experiences have been quite good, having received some very useful suggestions.

And I wanted to link to this book, as I found it very useful and straightforward to understand in regard to composing portrait photographs: The Portrait Photographer's Guide to Posing by Bill Hurter

The second thing I wanted to do was discuss where the Golden Mean or Ratio comes from. Instead of reinventing the wheel however, there are numerous resources on the Web that have done this job very well. Take a peek at these links for more info on some of the topics covered in episode four:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds
http://digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio
http://jakegarn.com/tag/golden-mean/ - Great portrait shots on this page

http://www.scrapjazz.com/topics/Photography/Lessons/579.php
http://digital-photography-school.com/framing-your-shots-photography-composition-technique

http://digital-photography-school.com/working-the-lines-in-your-photography
http://www.fodors.com/travel-photography/article-lines-50/

http://digital-photography-school.com/using-repetition-and-patterns-in-photography
http://www.fodors.com/travel-photography/article-patterns-52/

On next week's episode, I'll be discussing some of the types of lenses available and what each one is capable of doing. Until then, happy shooting, and please subscribe so you can stay up-to-date with any videos I post to my YouTube Channel.