highlgihts

If you like this article, you can now get the book! Joe has expanded the “Tuesday Composition” series into an inspiring new ebook on composition, especially for nature photography. Check it out: The Tuesday Composition.

This is the first installment of my delayed promise toward writing a weekly post about photographic composition. Unlike many basic elements of photography, such as depth-of-field or ISO, composition is something that is not easily taught in in a top-down, linear fashion. Even the most frequently cited “rules of composition” are ideas that are more often ignored in an excellent image. And very few people can even begin to construct an effective image through an abstract understanding of even dozens of such rules. Instead, photographers learn composition and how and when to apply these rules, through trial and error, through practice, through looking at other photographers’ work, and through guidance and feedback from skilled eyes. So think of this series as a starting point, not an ending point, to learning composition. Now, let’s get started by talking about highlights. (more…)