Composition: Part III - Page 2
© Wendy Folse
The human eye distinguishes the difference between a circle and a ball by the degree of light and shadow. How round is something? How thick is the object? How many sides are showing? Representing three-dimensional shapes in a one-dimensional picture is the challenge and photographers use light or the absence of it to show depth.
What about distance? How does the photographer show distance? Distance is most often manipulated by the use of different lenses. A wide-angle lens will cause the linear perspective to be over emphasized, while a long telephoto will reduce the sense of distance. Most often distance is portrayed by the placement of objects in the scene. For example, in a landscape shot, choosing to include objects in the foreground, middle ground and background establishes the apparent distances. Where the photographer chooses to place the focal point also establishes distance. Linear perspective is another important topic that we will cover in a future article.
Focal point
Focal point is the exact point at which the camera is focused at maximum sharpness. When looking into the viewfinder it is usually marked in the center with either a circle or a set of brackets. It is also the point at which the eye of the viewer looking at the photo should travel to first. It is what the photographer wants the viewer to look at and understand. It is not necessary to place the focal point dead center of the composition, nor is it desirable at all times.
Sometimes the photographer may wish to place the focal point off to one side and not have it in the center of the frame. However, with an autofocus camera the critical focus point must be in the center. The technique for doing this is found in the camera's manual. It will usually tell you to press the shutter button halfway to lock the focus on the subject, then while still holding the button in you can now reposition the composition before finally pressing the button all the way.
The lack of an obvious focal point is generally the biggest mistake found in amateur snapshots. The viewer looks at the photo and can't find one thing of obvious interest to look at. What was the photographer thinking? What was he looking at because the viewer can't figure out why the photographer snapped the shutter.
In-camera cropping
In-camera cropping means getting rid of the things that distract from the subject. So many times we get our pictures back and see all sorts of things that we wish were not there. In the printing stage of a picture, the technician can choose to do the cropping for us, but do they really know what we wanted. The answer is no, which is the reason that it is standard practice at most amateur labs to always print the negative straight with no cropping. After you receive the prints you can have them cropped to your specifications but that means paying additional fees to have the prints redone. Why not just get it right the first time, in the camera. Why waste film and money on things that shouldn't be in the picture anyhow?
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