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.
Overview
Syllabus
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
- Choosing a photo editing tool
- Recomposing an image with the Crop tool
- Aspect ratio
- Tone
- Correcting perspective in Lightroom
- Vignette to drive attention
- AI and composition
- Content-aware fill and composition
- Depth of field and composition
- Workshop wrap-up and exhibition
- Workshop students' final thoughts
- Final thoughts
Taught by
Ben Long
