Overview
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A detailed exploration of the concepts of composition, from basics such as the rule of thirds and leading lines to more advanced topics such as entry and exit points.
Syllabus
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Introduction
- Welcome
- Using this course
- What you need to know
- What is composition?
- All form, all the time
- How your camera is not like your eye
- Looking vs. seeing
- Vision and attention
- Dynamic range
- Seeing exercises
- What all good compositions have
- Subject and background
- Balance
- Point of view
- Simplicity
- Finding and capturing a good photo
- Working the shot: Why one is never enough
- Practicing
- Why black and white?
- Exercise: Practicing the fundamentals with points
- Lines
- Analyzing lines
- Exploring a town
- The Franklin Hotel
- Shapes
- Repetition: Arranging the elements
- Rule of threes
- Perspective
- Symmetry
- Focal length, camera position, and depth
- Intersections
- Exercise: Practicing fundamentals with geometry
- Working a shot, revisited
- Understanding the photographic impulse
- Warming up
- Exercise: Get your feet moving
- Thirds: How rectangular frames are weighted
- Tonal balance
- Content balance
- Squares: Weighting the corners
- Composing people
- Composing landscapes
- Sometimes you can't get the shot
- Practicing thirds with points and geometry
- Practicing squares with points and geometry
- Image analysis: The work of Steve Simon
- It's the light
- Direction of light
- Texture
- Shadows and negative space
- Exposure concerns
- Keeping one eye on post
- Light as subject
- Introducing the workshop location and instructors
- Assignment: Finding light
- Shooting the light
- Critiquing the light assignment
- The basics of color
- When to shoot color
- How to shoot color
- Practicing color composition
- Image analysis: The work of Paul Taggart
- Entry and exit
- Framing
- Examining the composition of this set
- Narrative
- When the scene doesn't fit in the frame
- Guiding the viewer's eye
- Assignment: Foreground and background
- Shooting foreground and background relationships
- Critiquing the foreground and background assignment
- Planes
- Controlling depth
- Juxtaposition
- Fear
- Layers
- Image analysis: The work of Connie Imboden
- Recomposing an image with the Crop tool
- Resizing an image
- Tone
- Altering the perspective in Photoshop
- Changing composition through retouching
- Vignetting to drive attention
- Workshop wrap-up and exhibition
- Workshop students' final thoughts
- Final thoughts
