Learn photography composition & exposure

Negative Space

One of the best lessons I learned is to pay attention to "Negative Space." Positive space is the actual subject of the photo - person, cat, car, whatever. The negative space is all the stuff around the subject.

Ever seen a picture with plants sprouting from the top of a person's head? How about a big picture with a very small person, with their head right in the middle of the picture, and their feet cut off?

Here's an exercise: go out and shoot pictures of three different subjects. Doesn't matter what the subject is, just three different subjects (or same subject in three different places.) The exercise itself is to pretty much ignore the subject and make the "Negative Space" around the subject perfect. Pay attention to the area around your subject, what is beside, above, below, behind and in front of your subject. Make all that perfect.

Try it, you'll see the world in a whole new way.

Composition - "Rule of Thirds"
This is a classic rule to make pictures look a little more interesting.

Divide the picture into thirds both vertically and horizontally - as in this diagram:

Put whatever the subject of your picture is a the point where one of the vertical and one of the horizontal lines cross each other. The subject should be one third of the way into the picture from the side and one third from the top or bottom. This creates balance from side to side but still adds motion to the photo where placing the subject dead center can create a static image.

Learn this rule well - use it for the next 100 or so shots. Then break this rule when you need to.

The "S" Curve

Yes, looks much like it sounds, a running creek, a winding path, the curve of girls hips, anything that makes a "S" shape through your picture will add interest and action to the picture. I generally find - as someone who learned to read left to right - that when the curve starts at the top left and ends at the lower right, the curve is "entering" the picture. When the "S" starts at the upper right and ends at the lower left, it appears - to me - to be leaving the picture.

The Diagonal Line

If you have a path going through your picture, try to have it running from near a top corner to near the opposite bottom corner rather than just straight across the image. This will give it a sense of motion and action rather than be a static image.

Something to play with next time you're out.

The basics of exposure

The first thing to understand about cameras and light meters is that they see the world as 18 per cent grey. If what you're shooting isn't averaging out as 18 per cent grey, the camera will try to make it so. Most pictures happen to work out to be the the equivalent of about 18 per cent grey - which is why cameras are made to expose that way.

If you're shooting high key (white on white - more on this in a second) then the camera will try to under expose and make it dull grey on dull grey. If you're shooting low key (black on black) then the camera will over expose the picture and make it dull grey on dull grey.

(The following Histogram explanation is a lesson from BestPhotoLessons.com)



Note: Showing the histogram on the different cameras is done different ways - please refer to your user's manual to find out how its done on your particular camera.

Once you see the histogram, you can either adjust your aperture and/or shutter speed, or the exposure compensation to bring the histogram into line. (Again, refer to your user's manual to find out how to do this if you don't already know.) The right side of the histogram chart is the "highlight" side. The left side is the "shadow" side.

This is properly exposed image:


To make sure you have as much highlight detail as possible, the histogram bars should be as close to the right side (highlight side) of the histogram as possible without blocking up like this overexposed image:


If the image is underexposed like the image below, it can be rescued by lightening it in your editing program, but generally will gain noise (similar to grain in film photography.)

When shooting a High Key image, which is basically "white on white", you want to keep subtle details, but make it as light as possible. Generally, I shoot to keep detail in the lightest areas as in the histogram explanation above, and then lighten it just a touch in Photoshop to make the whites really white.

If you're shooting film, or want to know the exposure for shooting High Key, one of the easiest ways is to find out the camera's suggested exposure the the lightest white area of your picture (get up close with your camera) and then open up the exposure two stops. This would be the aperture opened up from - for example - f16 to f8, or from f5.6 to f2.8. If you're using daylight or continuous light from some kind of light bulb, then you could slow down the shutter from - for example 1/125th of a second to 1/30th. These are examples only and your actual aperture and shutter speed may be different.

Otherwise, a good way to find exposures is to get a hand-held meter which gives "incident" readings - which is measuring the light coming to the subject. Point the meter at the brightest light and use the recommended exposure.

Whole Stops

Just so you know: photography describes exposure in terms of "Stops" or "Stopping down the lens." A whole stop change is to let in half as much or twice as much light.

Typical whole stops include:
Aperture - f1.8, f2.8, f4.6, f8, f11, f16, f22
Shutter - 1 second, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000.

There are more stops beyond these, but these are the typical stops.

Many cameras are also capable of doing 1/2 stops, and even 1/3 stops. But, you should be familiar with the standard stops as listed above.

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