Photo Composition Tips
(continued)

#3 Use a Frame

Keeping the viewer's interest within the confines of the edges of a photograph is not a simple task. There has been a lot of research into "Joe Average" and his attention span and the news for us photographers is not good. We have to use a selection of techniques to keep our viewer looking at our image for as long as it takes for him or her to understand what we were trying to say.

One of the simplest ways to hold attention into a picture is to incorporate a frame into the image. This photograph uses a none too subtle window in a child's playhouse to form a border - a kind of psychological barrier to the straying eye. All kinds of things can help with this task in compositional terms and because of the left to right, top to bottom bias with which we westerners read everything the top and right are the most in need of our help. Windows, doors, abstract shapes, blocks of colour and shadows can all perorm this elementary optical trick but there bis rarely an absolute need for the bottom of the photograph to have a retaining feature.

There are some other basic rules that may well be worth remembering too (all rules in photography can be broken) - such as avoiding having people looking out of a frame or cutting through joints on human (or animal) limbs. It's best to avoid having pointless details on the edge of a photograph or having the brightest point in a corner.

#4 Have an Eye For Detail

The choice between taking the same photograph as everyone else and standing back and getting something different becomes a matter of survival when you work on a weekly newspaper and the other five photographers around you will be publishing the next morning. Even if that weren't the dilemma of every photocall I go to, I like to think that as a photographer I am an individual. It's a pretty useful mindset to sign up to, no matter how much or little photography you do.

When an image is competing for space on a newspaper page it has to stand out. The enlightened editors at our papers allow images to arouse the reader's interest and don't insist that photographs tell the whole story all of the time. This approach works on every level, from the family album through e-mailed postcards to published images. Getting in close works.

#5 Space Makes You Think

In general I am a fan of tighter compositions, but there are some subject mattters that are just crying out for space. An large area of foreground or background can lend an enormous amount of emphasis to an image. Placing a small subject in a large space helps you to tell a story. If you place a person in one of the bottom corners you might suggest loneliness or vulnerability, whereas placing them at the top may well imply the opposite.

Cluttered photographs are much harder to pull off, simple images are often more effective and this image proves that simple doesn't necessarily mean tight.