There are a few lucky people who have a ‘natural eye’ for a picture –but for the rest of us, composition is a skill that has to be learned. The good news is that your compositional ability will improve quickly as you gain experience, and the process will soon become instinctive. In the meantime, however, there are a number of ‘rules’ we can follow to help us get to grips with effective composition. Of course, as with all rules, they are best applied judiciously.
1
The rule of thirds
The basic goal of a composition is to achieve a balance between the elements in the frame. One tried-and-tested method of doing this is to arrange those elements according to the rule of thirds. Imagine a grid overlaying your viewfinder, dividing it into thirds horizontally and vertically.
Now compose the elements in the scene according to the lines on the grid. The obvious starting point is to place the horizon on one of the dividing lines. In many photographs, the frame will be divided into two thirds land and one third sky; if the sky is dramatic, reversing these proportions gives a better result.
Having decided where to place the horizon, you can organise the other points of interest. A composition will often benefit from having a strong focal point, and the points where horizontal and vertical lines intersect in the rule-of-thirds grid are particularly powerful places to put such a point of interest.