How to think about composition
There’s a great article over at Digital Photography School about how to approach composition. We’ve all been there – you see a scene that attracts you, and you know there’s _something_ good there, you’re just not sure how to bring it out.
Photographer Neil Creek talks you through his thought processes as he assesses a potential shot, and works out how to say what he sees. Good examples show how things turn out.
For experienced photographers, I’m sure much of what he talks through happens at a non-rational level, but it’s valuable to be given some step by step illustrations.
I guess it’s like writing – I’ve been writing articles so long now, that I don’t ask myself a lot of specific questions as I’m working. I follow a feeling of what has to happen when, and how things should work. A little more like uncovering than creating.
But much of that comes from inwardly absorbing a lot of very small decisions about things over a long time. Thinking hard so I don’t have to think so hard any more. If someone asked me, I could plausibly explain why I’d done things the way I had, even though I hadn’t really been thinking about that at the time.