Help on composition needed

saikano

Hey fellas! This is my first post so don't be too harsh if I posted in the wrong forum

I've just bought my first DSLR - canon XS. I am a total noob,but I am trying to learn. Yesterday walking in the area I dound this awesome place green lake with white grass,but prob is I don't know what to include in the composition to make it more interesting as basically there is nothing except for a lake Any help?

Doug Solis

I would try to find a more interesting foreground to start with, some green reeds rather than white ones some interesting moss or rocks or an old dead snag or tree. I dont' know what the rest of the lake looks so it is difficult to offer much help. It looked to be a still day and you have some nice reflections, try to incorporate more of that.

Always try to shoot in first light or sundown as even dry reeds will take on a reddish hue. Learn the camera inside and out and pick up some basic compositon setup books they will pay dividends for you.

Keep Shooting

starlight

First question - What is the photo *of*? By that I mean, what are you trying to draw the viewers eye to...? In the image above it's hard to tell what you want us to look at...

The *Rule of Thirds* tells us that our eyes like things that are one-third of the way across our vertical or horizontal field of view. Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid evenly spaced across your view and place the most interesting feature of your image one of the lines (or the intersection of two lines). If there isn't a single interesting feature, then if there are multiple features, try to place them in the same way...or if there simply aren't any distinct features, choose a light feature (reflection, etc) that you can use to draw the eye. Eventually you'll be breaking the Rule of Thirds, but by then you'll know *why* you're doing it and you'll be doing it to create a specific look/feeling.

Depth of Field - the amount of your image that is in focus. Your depth of field is controlled by your Aperture (how big the opening for light in your lense is) and the distance from the subject. The larger the aperture (larger apertures have smaller f/ numbers like wire or needle gauges) the shallower your depth of field. If your lense has a wide enough aperture, you can use your depth of field to focus the viewer's attention on the subject by blurring anything closer or farther away. The farther away your subject is, the deeper the depth of field will be around them, so if using depth of field to isolate your subject is important, consider moving closer.

Perspective - we humans see the world from roughly five and a half feet off the ground, give or take. Try getting down on your knees, or up a tree for a different perspective on a scene. When shooting dogs, get down on their level. In the image above, try getting down on the level of the frogs in the pond, or the ducks/etc. It will create a different scene from the one we see standing on the trail...and in many cases it can transform a mundane scene into something spectacular...or at least different enough to be interesting.

Before you press the shutter release ask yourself: what am I trying to accomplish? What do I want the image to look like? What am I trying to show the person who will see this?

And never be afraid of trying something new and unusual...there are no such things as mistakes in digital photography...just images we learned from and deleted...