How to Take Great Photos: A Beginner's Guide for Travel Photography – Part 2: Mastering Composition
This is part two of the series on how to take great photos and will focus on mastering composition. Composition in travel photography is important to guide the viewer’s eye through the image to the main subject, provide more focus and help with the story telling. After reading the first part about technical basics you should be ready now to deep-dive into composition and how to master it in Travel Photography.
Previsualisation
For me Previsualisation is key in photography and to taking a stunning photo. It’s basically the picture you have in mind looking through the viewfinder or the display. It isn’t always a conscious process, at least not for me. Most of the time it’s more a feeling that something just doesn’t look right. On the other side it can be a very conscious process like the night shot I took of the New York skyline. The reason why it was deliberate is that I just didn’t have the right equipment, meaning the lens, with me. So, I had to think about and focus the exposure and composition on the part of the image that I wanted to get in the end. As you can see it worked quite well.
2.5sec - f/3.5 - ISO100 - With a bit of cropping of the original photo on the left I achieved the image I had in mind when I took this photo in New York City at night.
Another part of the previsualisation process is scouting, especially in Travel Photography. Every time I get to a city, either the first time or returning, I walk around the first day and just look what is interesting, from where the light comes and if there are obstacles I need to take into consideration. The other days during the stay I then return at different times of the day, to take advantage of the Golden Hour, the sunrise or bright daylight. The scouting will also help planning the travel shots. Obviously, you can do this already at home, I do this for viewing platforms I plan to visit, like the Rockefeller Center, to determine the best time of the day to go up.
TIP: When scouting for sights or monuments, make sure you walk by in each direction. Walking the street north-south can look very different than south-north. You also will see if there are other interesting perspectives than just the classic view.
Foreground vs Background
The concept of Foreground, Middle ground and Background is crucial to understand and use especially as a composition technique for beginners. These layers will give a rich, three-dimensional experience and transform a flat scene into one with stunning perspective. The Foreground is the element of the photo closest to lens. The Background on the other hand is the one furthest away. Anything in between is considered the Middel Ground. Breaking down your image in these layers is a powerful tool to add depth to photos, especially travel photos. Keep in mind that not every image will have or needs all three elements. Only two can suffice to add context and a certain framing.
To make it more tangible imagine a nice landscape where you have a nice meadow or garden with flowers in the Foreground, a river or lake in the Middle Ground and some snowcapped mountains in the Background. Similarly imagine a couple kissing on the riverbank and the castle on the hilltop behind them. As you take the photo from the other side of the river, the river itself is your Foreground, the couple is your Middel Ground and the hilltop is you Background. I hope these examples help to understand and visualize these concepts and layers.
As explained in the text you can use the grid line on your phone or camera to help you position the objects along the lines or at the intersection for some great composition.
Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds in travel photography is a simple, but very powerful tool to master composition. Divide your image in nine equal parts using lines and place interesting elements, objects and people on the intersections of those lines. But also, avoid placing the core elements of the image dead centre (in the middle rectangle) as it is a quite boring composition as the eye of the viewer will not move around the frame. Instead move objects a bit off-centre and automatically it looks more interesting.
For portraits, the eyes of the subject should always be on the upper intersections or close to them. The horizon should always be on the horizontal lines or again close to them. In the photo below from Iceland you can see that the statue basically stands on the lower horizontal line, while the churches clock is on the upper horizontal line. The church itself is off centre. The sides of the building as well help as leading lines, which I will discuss later.
I don’t use the grid lines on my devices rather in the Lightroom when I crop the picture, but as a beginner it’s very useful to active them in your camera or phone to help you.
Framing
An easy way enhancing your travel photos is with framing. Framing helps to guide the viewer’s eye to the main subject of the photo and provides a stronger focus. Natural frames in photography are windows, archways, trees or rock formations.
Below you see three great examples for framing. The first one is from a viewing platform close to Senftenberg in East Germany which used to be a mining area. You can climb up the observation tower close to the lake and there you have this bolt-structure which works perfectly as a frame for the huge excavators. The four metal branches as well help to guide the eye towards the hole in the middle.
1/105sec - f/1.7 - ISO100 - This photo I took with my mobile phone in Pro-Mode. As discussed the disc and the whole in the middle work as perfect frame to guide the eye to the excavator.
1/40sec - f/18 - ISO 100 - Next time you're in New York City make your way to Dumbo in Brooklyn to get this iconic photo opportunity with the Manhattan Bridge and the Empire State Building framed by the pilar of the bridge.
1/125sec - f/2.8 - ISO 50 - The window in this image work quite well as a frame for the lake, the trees and the mountains in the background. I took this photo on one of my first trips to the USA in 2008 with my camera, long before I bought my first DSLR.
As you see Framing is quite an easy and potent tool and I encourage you to be creative in finding frames that help enhance your composition.
Leading Lines
Leading lines are the most commonly used composition techniques for travel photography as they’re everywhere. In essence you use lines around the main object or subject that lead the viewer’s eye towards it. The lines themselves can be man-made as in the first three examples below or natural like in the last example. Besides leading the eye towards where you want the viewer’ s attention, lines can add depth and structure to the images. Man-made lines can be pillars, roads, markings on street, rail tracks, fences and many more. Natural leading lines can be rivers, rock formation, trees, cracks and so on. No matter which type they are, always use them to your advantage. On the other hand lines that are not leading towards the main subject will distract the eye and guide it away from it. Those lines you need to avoid or remove in post-processing.
1/160sec - f/9 - ISO160 - The little wooden poles work great as leading lines to guide the eyes towards the city skyline. This image was taken from the Brooklyn Bridge Park.
1/10sec - f/2.8 - ISO 400 - The big red carpet acts as a great visual line leading up the stairs.
1/80sec - f/4 - ISO 100 - Here another great examples for leading lines. The rail tracks lead the eye of the viewer towards the opening of the hall at the end. This photo was taken in the main train station of Prague, Czech Republic.
1/500sec - f/5.6 - ISO 100 - The trees act as the leading lines here. The two towers of the church act as secondary leading lines guiding the eye towards the main subject.
The lines themselves don’t need to be straight like in the train station or the staircase, but can be winding like in the case of the skyline of NYC or uneven like the ones in the photo of the church in Brussels. I encourage you to look around and use leading lines in you travel photos as much as you can.
Symmetry and Patterns
In the section about the rule of thirds I highlighted that putting the subject in the dead centre looks boring. I also explained that even though this is a general rule, every now and then you should break it. If you have perfect symmetry in your object it is one of those instances (readers with OCD will love that composition idea). Hand in hand with symmetry goes patterns. In Travel Photography Symmetry and capturing Patterns create a sense of balance, harmony, order, and rhythm, as well as contrast, tension, and movement. For Symmetry to work best make sure the object or item that is the anchor for symmetry is in the centre. If you put it off centre, it will look a bit strange and can be quite unpleasing. Patterns like lampposts, benches, rocks, clouds, or colours work best to improve composition, so try to find them in your travel destination.
The first two photos below are great examples for symmetry while including leading lines as well. The last photo in this section is an example for patterns with the lamp posts scattered along the stairs. They also help guiding the eyes along the staircase.
1/50sec - f/9 - ISO 100 - The pillars on both sides accentuate the symmetry effect. Same with the bike path in the middle with its two lanes.
1/320sec - f/9 - ISO 100 - The pillars with the statues on the top as well as the roof in the middle give the impression of symmetry only broken by the two black statues on the roof.
1/60sec - f/3.5 - ISO 640 - The lamp posts along the staircase create a very nice patterns which helps greatly with adding depth to the photo.
Negative Space
Negative space, or dead space as I would call it, is the empty space around the main subject. It’s one of the main mistake beginners make with composition, as there’s nothing interesting in there that guides the viewer’s eyes. To avoid negative space, make sure the main subject fills the image. Alternatively, you can remove the distracting space or fill it with less important items ideally with something that leads the viewers eye back to the focal point of the photo.
In the photos below I zoomed in to remove the empty area on the left side of the photo. I could also have cropped it during post-processing. For me it’s always better to correct it with the lens rather than in an editing software as we lose resolution doing so.
1/2000sec - f/3.2 - ISO 160 - This photo was my first attempt to get this statue in front of the Parliament in Vienna. In this image I wanted to have the background blurred out and hence, I worked with a wide-open aperture, but as it was bright midday sun, I had to go for a fast shutter speed.
1/2000sec - f/3.6 - ISO 160 - When I checked the first image on the display on my camera I realized there was to much negative space. Therefore, I decided to zoom in and cut out the negative space. With this the second image looks much better.
As much as we all love a blue sky without clouds it’s one of the most uninspiring subjects you can have in photos. I always make sure there are some clouds in the image or minimize the space the sky takes in the image. On the other hand, negative space can help to show scale and importance of the subject. It can also emphasize loneliness or remoteness. Below you have two photos one from Colorado and one from Iceland where I used negative space for exactly that reason. And as you can see putting the subject in the centre like in Iceland makes it even more striking.
1/500sec - f/11 - ISO 100 - With the truck in the foreground the open wide space works well. The wide openness gives an idea of how remote this place is and adds to this truck being in the middle of nowhere.
1/320sec - f/4 - ISO 64 - This photo of a church in Iceland was taken in 2011, again way before my first DSLR. The negative space around the church gives a good impression on how remote this church is and the wide open area around it.
Perspective and Viewpoints
As one of the last concepts for a great composition I would like to touch on perspective and unique viewpoints. We do like straight horizons and photos taken on eye level. Don’t get me wrong for most of my photos I make sure that’s the case. But it can be fun and quite interesting to move away from that. Rather than using the straight horizon, use an unusual angle. Rather than taking a photo at eye-level try from a frog perspective or birds eye view.
In the image below I went down from the eye-level and tilted the camera quite a bit. Both of these things add a certain dynamic to the photo and obviously the singer helps here too. It’s always great to have a person playing with the camera.
1/80sec - f/1.8 - ISO 640 - As discussed, the tilted angle together with the fairly fast shutter speed help to create and capture this intense moment during the song.
For travel photography you should also move around and try to get objects from different sides and angles. Don’t be lazy and move around, get closer or move away from the subject. Certainly, I always start with the classic view that you see on post cards. You need those for travel photography as people will recognize them. But then I try to get a different view, most of the time I go closer and shoot some details. In the photos below you see this. First, I took the photo of the fountain as a whole. To be honest, it’s not very striking. But I noticed the expressions of the faces of the figures in the lower part. I decided to focus on the falling men and this shot is still one of my favourites.
1/80sec - f/10 - ISO 100 - The fountain as such is quite impressive. But moving into the details is so much more interesting.
1/400 - f/5 - ISO 100 - Focusing on the two figures on the bottom left created a very powerful image that still today is one of my favourite ones. I also opened the aperture a bit compared to the classic view as this helps with the depth of field.
Another consideration for this section is orientation of the photo: landscape or portrait. Here it really depends on the subject or subjects. Look for leading lines and they will tell you what the best is. Towers, pillars, statues and similar subjects work best in portrait. Skylines, street views, and parks work best with landscape. In the two photos of the fountain you see that I used Portrait for the whole fountain and landscape for the detailed view.
Summary
I hope with this second part of the series you have now got a feeling for composition, besides just knowing how to get the right exposure for your photos. Mastering composition is crucial for you to make progress and get better. On the other hand, composition on its own is not enough to make a photo great, it works together with exposure. Focusing on using on concept is definitely a good start, but combining multiple is when you achieve stunning photos. I will touch on this in the third part: Let’s get creative.
