In digital photography, how you compose photos controls how much impact they have on your viewers.
Use the following tips to create the maximum viewer response.
Rule of Thirds Ancient Greek painters discovered the rule of thirds, also known as the golden grid.
The rule says to mentally divide the scene in your viewfinder into thirds both horizontally and vertically, like a tic-tac-toe grid.
If your main point of interest in your digital camera's viewfinder is a static spot, place it on one of the intersecting points.
For long horizontal subjects, such as a road or fence line, place it along one of the horizontal lines.
Place long vertical subjects, such as a tree, along one of the vertical lines.
Just using this technique by itself gives your photos more impact, but try these other compositional considerations for even more impact: Framing Depth Focus Viewpoint Lightness Color Framing Framing draws the eyes of your viewers into the photo and right to your subject.
Once you start looking for items to use as frames, you will see them all around you.
Frames can be natural or man-made.
Tree branches, doorways, and windows are three popular ones.
When first using framing, many photographers place their subject too far away from the frame.
When this happens, the subject appears too small inside the frame thereby losing the impact of the framing.
Depth The illusion of depth occurs when there is a noticeable distance between the foreground and background.
Depth draws your viewers into the photo.
When two items of the same approximate size appear to be different in size, the eye interprets the smaller one as being farther away from the larger one.
Atmospheric haze or light fog between the larger and smaller objects contributes to the illusion by making the smaller object appear further away.
Focus The eyes of your viewers go naturally to the object in focus in a photo and you can use this phenomenon to your advantage by using selective focusing.
Making your subject appear in focus and the rest of your photo slightly out-of-focus occurs by using a small f-stop number such as f4 or f2.
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Viewpoint Viewpoint is the perspective or the physical placement of your camera at the time a photo is taken.
Before taking a picture, look around and try other viewpoints through your viewfinder.
Try shooting from a position higher than the subject, a position lower and finally, from a different lateral or side-to-side position.
See how these perspectives change the way your subject appears in the viewfinder.
Digital cameras are great for experimenting with different perspectives as you can take photos from several different perspectives and instantly see the photos.
Then you can keep the one(s) you like and delete the others.
Lightness The lightness of a photo greatly contributes to the feeling of that photo.
A photo having a very light tonal range, known as high-key, conveys a feeling of youth, hope, beauty, or softness.
Often, you will see a beautiful young girl or a flower portrayed in a high key setting.
Conversely, low-key photos imply seriousness, sobriety, age or impending danger.
A photo of an impending storm conveys the feeling of danger.
Color In a photo, color serves two purposes.
It sets the mood of the photo and enables us to distinguish the different elements in a photo.
The more a color of an object contrasts with its surroundings, the more likely that object will become the subject of the photo.
Location photographers use very colorful props when photographing people as it identifies the people as the subject and separates them from the rest of the photo.
Conversely, a photo with a uniform or non-contrasting color conveys a different mood.
A photo having a bluish cast conveys a feeling of coldness while a reddish color conveys the feeling of hotness, endangerment or adventure.
Experiment with these compositional factors the next time you shoot photos with your digital camera.
The more visually aware you become of these factors when composing photos, the more impact your photos will have on your viewers.