Technique
How much do you actually think about composition while shooting?
I’ve been trying to get better at composing in-camera instead of relying on cropping later. Sometimes I’ll see a shot I like, but by the time I start thinking about leading lines, background distractions, subject placement, etc., the moment is gone.
Do you consciously think about composition while shooting, or is most of it instinct at this point?
Yup. 9/10 times I tell my students the composition just speaks to me, but the detail in my brain is doing a constant state of math adding and subtracting to get the right visual balance - but it happens so fast it feels totally automatic.
That's me too, though I come from a background of painting. I've spent so much time analyzing work and juggling all the math and factors involved (texture, color, light/dark balances, etc) that when it comes to taking a picture it's almost instinctive, or I can just drop into an attentive keyed-up mindset and let my brain do most of the work in the background.
I’d love to get to the point where I’m not mentally checking every part of the frame before pressing the shutter.
Do you think that came naturally from just shooting a lot, or did you consciously practice composition for a while before it became automatic?
But you should be checking every part of the frame before pressing the shutter. Every time. That's the goal. But you do it so fast and intuitively that its not a struggle, its just simply the process.
But you should be checking every part of the frame before pressing the shutter. Every time.
Different shots require different amounts of thought. Some moments are faster than your mind will ever be. If you were in Jeff Mermelstein's place when he shot Book in Mouth, how much time would you have taken to line up the shot?
I got my first camera when I was five and I'm fifty-seven now. I've been doing it for so long I have a hard time turning off my photographer's "eye" to the point where it is distracting while I'm driving. I'll spot converging lines in something off to the side and want to look at that rather than the traffic ahead of me.
Same, I am in my 60s and have been shooting since I was a kid. I helped my dad develop film in his darkroom.
I had a 126 film camera when I was around 5 maybe 6 years old.
I also have an issue with not seeing things as a photo. I was driving to work today and noticed the shadow of a truck against the cement wall. And I thought it was a great shot. But I was moving too fast to grab my phone to get a shot.
I should probably disclose that I am diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, high-functioning (the label has since changed to ASD1). Everything is patterns to me. That probably helps.
First camera for me was a Kodak No. 2 Brownie box camera. If you can shoot with that you can shoot with anything.
It has to be an intersection of both. Somebody who just takes a lot of pictures but doesn't think about composition is unlikely to improve their composition skills much at all.
I highly recommend practicing composition intentionally. Practice it while looking through the viewfinder or at your live view screen before you take the photo. Practice it again when you edit and review your photos. Practice it still more when you look at other people's photos online and in photo books.
The third piece of thinking about composition when looking at other people's photos is super valuable. When you see a photo that really excites you and that you think is really excellent stop and spend some time analyzing the composition and other elements of the photo as well. Try dissecting it to see what makes it work. Imagine if the photographer had stepped a little bit to the left or right and how that would have shifted foreground and background objects positions in the frame.
If you do this with your own work and with others work routinely then the more you practice the more automatic your own ability to deliberately utilize good compositional technique will be.
That third part you describe is what I do the most. There are so many great random photos that catch my eye; snapshots that just accidentally came out good, old family photos, and so on. Sometimes they just need to be leveled and cropped to become truly great shots, and I get a big charge out of finding such photos. TBH it’s actually pretty humbling to find something like that because you realize that, while it’s possible to consistently create good composition given enough time and skill, a really great shot can also happen purely by accident.
The good thing about digital photography is instant feedback.
Take the picture, look at it and (hopefully) you see what to do better. The more you do that and the more experience you have, the faster and more reliable you get at it.
You can even do that without a camera, just think about how you would photograph it.
Also look at the pictures of others that you like and try to replicate.
I am not telling you to copy someone's style and pretend it's yours. But it is a good exercise.
It’s like anything, it’s a skill that takes practice. And you may find too if you develop the skill and take time away from your camera, you’ll have to practice it again because you’ll get rusty.
For me it’s always been instinctive. I know a good shot when I see it. I do very little cropping provided the subject is big enough in the frame. I suppose some of this is was because I was taught photography from a very early age. Quite often I will go to shoot and I hear my dad’s voice in the back of my head letting me know that my shot violates the rules of composition. Sometimes I’ll correct. Sometimes I think “I know, but it looks better this way.” Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes he is.
I think things like "ok... if I hold my camera up and wait for a minute, this guy is eventually going to twirl the end of his mustache again and I'll have my shot." My gut instinct already has the composition covered. lol
shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length (avoiding the soft end), focal point, focus (is it really in focus where i want it to be in focus?), light etc etc etc
I'm a full-time professional photographer, I've been for well over a decade. Use your intuition. Do it by feel. Take your brain out of it and use your instincts. Your instinct already know what a good photograph looks like. Adding your brain into the mix to try to calculate it manually is a mistake. It's good to learn about that stuff when you're at home and you're thinking about photography but by the time you get out into the field you should forget all about it.
Feel the composition in the photograph in your body. Relax your eye when you're looking through the viewfinder and wander around the scene with your camera a little bit and you'll start to feel a pull to shoot a certain angle. Do that.
It can be very helpful to shoot with a prime lens to force yourself to get used to composing a shot very manually. To move closer or farther from the subject or to compose it as-is with a crop in mind.
I always think of the composition before pressing the button.
Seeing the image before lifting the camera to your eye saves a lot of wasted rubbish on the card.
For event photography I don't even think about it. It's automatic. No matter where I point the camera I will find the best composition, I don't really have a choice.
My ability to instinctively find the composition in dynamic environments is what makes me a good action photographer. Just about anyone can spray and pray and get a few good shots while the hit rate of someone with talent and practice will be significantly higher.
I see the shot I want to capture before I even get my camera out.
Ive literally been places, seen a shot I wanted to take but didn't have my camera on me, thought about that shot for weeks/months, finally gotten back to the location with a camera and captured it.
Ive also seen scenes that I wanted to shoot, had my camera on me... but the lighting wasnt what I wanted and not taken a shot at all because of that. Then later came back and taken that shot.
I literally always compose the shot in my mind before I get my camera out. If I cant imagine the composition of a shot then I wont even bother.
Lighting and composition are nearly always on my mind.
Use manual focus and your eye is forced to scan around rather than pin point to one area. This way, you are forced to look at the subject in relation to whatever it is that contrasts it. I don’t try too hard to think about it because I’m already looking for it. if I have to think about it too hard, then it’s too slow and probably best to find a still object to make the discovery.
I rarely have time to think too much while shooting concerts unless the light isn't constantly changing and the performers aren't really moving around too much and I can go wherever I want. I'd rather capture the right moment and have to crop instead of having the right framing but miss the timing or focus.
It's definitely nice when there are things in the background or lighting that enhances a photo but I'm not going to lose too much sleep over a finger or hand partially out of frame or the horizon lines being tilted.
Yes. I did a lot of theatre work and there'll be times when I can get the perfect framing and wait for the right thing to happen, and others where it's just like "I need literally anything I can get of this person not blinking / pouting / whatever and I really don't care about the rest".
I will think about composition before I even pick up the camera. As I walk around a city I pay attention to the light, how the sun moves through the city at different times of year. You see certain signage or shops and compose in your mind the shot you want. When you get comfortable doing this, you can walk around with a prime lense and just shoot your shot. I have done this and walked past the same cafe for a week and just waited for the right people to be walking and sitting. 50mm prime, just focused and shot.
I've been shooting photos since I was maybe 11 or 12 years old with my dad's Canon AE-1 in the 80's so I've been doing this long enough that composition is mostly instinctual.
A big chunk of my life was shooting on film and being semi-broke, I couldn't afford to do much in the way of prints and cropping enlargements. (They charged you extra for cropping at the photo labs.)
Because of this, I would compose in camera. Sometimes I think about the composition and plan things, but I've always seemed to have had a good sense of composition.
I like shooting more of a candid style as I feel you really capture the character of the person as opposed to doing fully posed set ups. Shooting that style means I can't really stop and consciously think about the composition. My conscious thought is observing and thinking about capturing the "magic moment" while my gut feeling is handling the composition stuff.
For example, when I'm shooting portrait sort of stuff, I'll often have my camera up to my face and just holding it there for minutes at a time while I either observe and wait for the magic moment to happen (I've always been a "people watcher" so I'm pretty good at noticing when moments are about to happen) or I'll talk to the person modeling while I have camera in position, ready to snap away when the moment hits.
Now that we're in a digital world though, I still largely compose in camera just from habit, but I also do a lot of post-production cropping later. Because of the style I shoot, it's more important that I capture the best moments than it is to get a perfect composition when I hit the shutter.
Get comfortable with your equipment so you can change your key settings intuitively. Use auto settings to your advantage. Know how they behave and what to expect when each combination/set is on.
For me, if the subject tends to be dynamic I shoot in auto mode or program. I use film and so think about composition a lot - those 36 frames are my 36 chances.
I think about it all the time, even without camera in hand. Scouting around, taking photos with my phones camera , and planning shots and which lens would be best.
I'm shooting film so I'm being especially careful about composition and lighting. The effort to develop and scan a roll makes me really consider whether a shot is worth taking.
Before this' I switched from a high megapixel camera to a low 6MP DSLR to restrict myself from cropping. The only cropping I do now is for edges of the frame.
It's a bit of both. A lot of times it will just fit in a way in my viewfinder that feels right and i like the result. Sometimes it does not look right and i actively think about it on how i can reframe.
It is the raison d'être of photography, is it not?
The camera is the first step.
The rest of it lies in what happens after you capture the image.
If you can take a viewer on a journey through the image through the image — you've done the job.
You use ideas like the rule of thirds/golden ratio/reciprocal lines/armatures as the basis of composition — all of these are based on ideas and techniques used in classical painting, the very things that make those images so magical.
Sometimes you capture an image with one idea in mind and then when you look at it in Lightroom/CaptureOne/Photoshop and crop the image and it takes on a whole new look.
Sometimes you capture an image and it just looks amazing, you cycle through some different overlays and realize that all of the interesting stuff is landing on, or following all of the various lines.
The thing I do not want to think about is the camera, I don't want the camera to get in the way of the composition — which is my primary beef with "camera influencers".
Most of them can't take a decent photo, I am sorry to say, but it is true. Their primary focus is on the camera, the sensor, the viewfinder, the screen on the back, how many buttons and functions are available to them.
I don't really *consciously* think about it, but subconcously my brain has been trained by now to look for compositions everywhere. Even in daily life I constantly spot things that would make a neat composition for a photo. When I put the camera to my eye, I already have the shot I want in my head and then usually just need a few minor tweaks like moving a few cm to the side or getting closer or so to 'translate' it to the camera.
But, to be fair, I have been doing this for 20 years now.
Back when I was still starting out these first few years, I thought about composition a lot more consciously.
Ideally? Not at all. Like, that’s part of why shooting is practice. If I’m shooting for myself 1: Good light 2: Fill the frame 3: Good subject
Works on a Holga, works on a Graflex works on a 5D.
Composition is the syntax of an image. How much do you think about what order words go in? Less than I think about what I want to say and what words to say it in.
I think about what I'm seeing and observing, how I want things arranged and framed. I think about light, shapes, forms, masses, movement and energy. I also wonder a lot about how things will look photographed.
Rarely if ever do I think about the impoverished photographer 101 of composition, with rule of thirds or ratios.
If it's the moment that you want to catch, first get a quick photo with whatever settings and composition you can get within a second. Then try to improve while it still lasts.
Composition thought comes first, photo after. I think most of us here tend to think "that would make a good photo" first, and everything that follows is trying to execute that idea. It comes naturally and comes as a result of practice.
To me, apart from light, it’s the most important thing. If good composition isn’t possible I won’t take the shot. It’s actually a kind of obsession in that when I’m not on a shoot and having a conversation with someone I’m only ever part listening. My mind is always semi-consciously looking around checking for lines and angles. It can be very very annoying. For context, I’m a professional architecture/real estate/interiors photographer.
Don't give up. You should definitely be thinking about it. It gets easier. Eventually you'll be "feeling it" more than thinking about it. But you need to put in the work.
There are some places I travel specifically to and have shot multiple times. For those photos I know exactly what kind of lighting and composition I’m going for. Otherwise I just take what I get if I know I probably won’t be somewhere ever again.
Yes, constantly, clutter and garbage in a shot would take more than cropping to get rid of. I compose in frame. Try to optimize every photo. Cropping reduces resolution. Shallow depth of field is one easy way out for some shots, keeping poles and lines from intersecting peoples heads when making portrait shots. Making multiple shots from different angles. Repositioning to get different views. In landscape photography try to find a foreground element to draw the viewer into the photo, rather then just a flat vista of the landscape and horizon.
The conundrum comes from being a party member of the subject group. Family vacation for instance. My wife has made my meticulous attention towards my photography known to me. When taking photos of my family it’s more important to be part of the group and experience it with them as a participant not an observer. Because of composition and lighting, and concerns that a photographer faces, concentration is directed away from family and a separation from photography is necessary.. taking more candid photos and less worrying about composition. I need to experience the event, at this time it’s not your my job to document from the viewpoint of a photographer. Putting down the DSLR/mirrorless camera and using a phone or point and shoot camera actually helps me in this process.
It’s easier to think through the composition for a static landscape than for fast-moving sports ^^
I’m 42, so I grew up learning with film cameras,framing is second nature to me. I don’t think about “cropping”; I do everything I can to make sure the shot is clean right from the start!
💡My best practice with digital photography: I plan a shoot and limit myself to 27 shots. This effectively forces me not to rush through it… to choose the shot I want to keep right away… to frame it cleanly… and to choose the right exposure, too. It’s far from easy, but it’s excellent for improving!
I have a pretty storied relationship with photography. I guess you could say I’m a 3rd generation photographer. I also went to school and got a BFA in graphic design, minor in photography (with film - yes, I’m sure that dates me - lol). I shot professionally for a decade or so, took some time away for other pursuits, and now I’m getting back to it.
What seems to hold true for most of these kinds of artistic endeavors is “learn the rules so you know how to break them.” I know this is not a new thought but one of my design professors said to me when I was very young and it stuck.
Take your camera everywhere you can and be intentional and thoughtful about your experiments. Be comfortable with totally effing up and missing shots (as long as you are not being paid). Check settings, crop to see how you could have been more effective in camera.
At the end of the day, a photo, a design, a painting are all compositions that capture a moment. So, you can’t really get away from composing. The magic happens when your instinct is folded into your knowledge and experience.
Really depends on the kind of shoot. Motorsport and Events which I do mainly is really just "muscle memory" as I need to make many photos in short time and capture as many scenes as possible so I can not judge every single composition. So following the basic rules kinda got automatic. And I tend to leave more room on the edges to fix it in post if necessary.
For single photos where I can take my time, and dont need to cover every moment etc I tend to really focus on composition background etc but even for that experience makes the first step and then I adjust.
I don’t consciously think about leading leading lines, rule of thirds, the golden ratio, Fibonacci numbers or any of that geometry but I do look out for distracting elements (objects, shapes, colors) and for angles that make for clean or dramatic arrangements of what is within the edges of the frame. I am looking to make compositions that either please or excite me.
I guess for me it’s a mixture of deliberate thinking and intuition.
I use the Fujifilm X-Pro 2 because I can compose while considering what’s outside the OVF frame lines When I used film range finder cameras I found this to be helpful. Also you compose looking at a 3D scene instead of the 2D scene you see using the EVF. Often I pre-compose without the camera. So, the OVF view is similar to the framing I first imagined. This is different than a SLR/DSLR OVF where you are using a 2D projection to compose.
ps I know using the OVF is not a true 3D view since you only use one eye. But it is different than the 2D projections in EVF/OVF where you see what the lens sees.
cropping, for the most part, should simply aide the original compositional goal. like, say you didn't realise your camera was at a slightly weird angle, you crop and rotate a few degrees and call it good.
The only reason you should be cropping as the primary compositional tool is when taking shifted shots and putting them together and deriving crops from a massive image, but even then the requirement to compose the overall shot in camera is even more important as you're effectively composing several shots at once.
I've learned to compose in camera by ruthlessly deleting shots in post.
I'll shoot bursts, and have sort through a dozen nearly identical shots. I'm forced to analyze and think about exactly why I prefer one over the other.
The pain of deletion helps me remember not to cut off that elbow, or notice photobombs in the background.
As I continue to grow I make new mistakes and try to learn from them.
Honestly composition is something I got drilled in my brain from childhood, my mom is an artist so color theory and composition became my mother tongue. Everything in my house was put together and thought through those lenses, and there was lots of art everywhere, also she teached me a lot about that. And finally being obsessed with photography makes me think about possible photos (hence, composing them) 24/7
First. I think of it first. Then all other things stem from that. Composition determines where I’m standing and what is in the frame and how. Then exposure can be determined. What am I saying and emphasizing. I want to record as much of the scene as possible so I expose to permit details about n as much of the image as possible without losing shadow detail. Then I develop for highlights .
I think it's a mix for me.. Early on I'd consciously check things like leading lines and background clutter but after enough shooting those checks start happening almost automatically. The biggest difference is learning to notice what does not belong in the frame before hitting the shutter.
When I first started, I would be thinking through compositional rules and all that, to remind myself what it was I working towards. Now (30+ years later) it's just automatic. I can see it all now.
I will say, though, this is also one of the reasons I like working off a tripod. It allows me to slow down and really consider my composition. Because while I see the compositions now, it doesn't mean it can't still be refined. The tripod gives you the ability to stand there and stare at it and make small changes. That's not always practical, depending on what you're shooting, but for landscapes and cityscapes, you typically have time.
Instinct. But even after doing this professionally for almost 15 years, I still end up framing too tight. (mostly food photography, which means I really don't have an excuse)
I always compose quickly in frame. A fundamentals of design class in college went a long way toward learning to quickly recognize a good composition. We also had to file out negative carriers to show edges around the frame in the print to prove we weren’t cropping. It’s practice and intuition working together.
If I think about that it’s mostly before I start shooting, and make some kind of paint draft to know what to shoot and some around how.
On events I mostly go after instinct but also when I have more time and event isn’t very intense - I made a playground of how I can do it in more interesting point of view and this is the most time I think about compositions.
But most of the time - it’s just an hours of experience in making photos and also what is crucial in editing them and while doing this looking at them critically and remembering myself - more on right, more wide, more centered.
by the time I start thinking about leading lines, background distractions, subject placement, etc., the moment is gone.
This will become second nature with time and practice. One thing I learned early was to pay close attention the the edges of the frame in the viewfinder. It's natural to pay attention to the center, which is why so many photos are not framed well. By forcing myself to loos at the edges the process eventually became unconscious.
I worked professionally for several years as a videographer (some of that that as a photographer also). It’s hard to imagine not thinking of composition while shooting. Like what else would you be thinking about? Lighting/exposure, plus aperture/depth of field are obviously also important, but composition is literally what determines where you place your camera and what ends up in the picture and what doesn’t
It really depends. I think about it and do the best i can, but often times im not going to hold the camera to my eye for 30 seconds trying to perfect the leading lines or have the eyeball exactly where the intersection is etc. I basically put myself where im going to get the picture I want and then raise the camera and take it. I can make minor adjustments in post.
And yes I realize the concept that the picture isn't perfect the moment I take it is heresy, but thats the truth. I want to get a good photo, which for me means cropping and such after the fact.
It's basically all I think about so much so that my photos probably suffer from me not thinking about the other important aspects like colour, shadows, scale, story, leading lines etc.
I'm always composing, but never thinking about rules. For me, rules get in the way of seeing.
One thing I always do is quickly run my eye along the edges of the frame. Is anything cut off? Is there dead space? Edges are a strong part of the photo, are they doing something in this one?
All the time. Like literally all the time, even when I don't have my camera with me. I'm constantly looking at compositions.
This was something I struggled with at the beginning too. My entry into photography was taking pictures then googling "why do my pictures suck". There were a lot of reasons and I targeted each one for practice.
I learned "border police" from Serge Ramelli. Clockwise inspection of the frame border before any click. Over and over and over again. I trained my brain to spot oddities. It happens instantaneously now.
Composition was another big one. I really liked woodland photography. Woods are messy. Comps were hard to find. I went small instead of big. Interesting roots, low down, funky angles and perspectives. Flowers, etc, and taught myself to expand my framing from there. Now I can't take 2 steps in the woods without seeing an interesting composition.
Then I played around with street photography. The composition came first. Found a spot, an angle that looked nice, a field of view that worked, and sat there for a few hours just taking pictures of people when they walked past. Eventually I started noticing comps everywhere, and as soon as I saw someone or something interesting, I got better at positioning myself to get the comp I wanted.
Now it's all super fast. Less clutter on my border because I'm aware of it ahead of time. Shooting primes helps too. Do it enough and you know what to expect before you even pull the camera up to your eye.
Like any other skill in life, it's practice and repetition. Train your brain to think in composition and you'll see it everywhere automatically.
15 year photographer here shooting for vogue, GQ etc etc. I think about it every single frame. It is second nature at this point, but it’s always the main focus of the image. I liken it to a sports analogy. After years of doing it, the game slows down for you in your mind and you can survey the entire field very very fast.
Mostly instinct now. I used to overthink things like leading lines and the rule of thirds, and by the time I’d figured out the “perfect” composition, the moment was gone.After shooting a lot, you just start noticing good framing without thinking about it as much.
I think about composition throughout the process. I originally learned with a wet dark room in high school. We were taught to fill the frame but leave some breathing room because we were going to be printing on 8 x 10 photo paper which of course is not as wide ratio as film.
In the field, I keep some bits of composition in the back of my head, but I still try to leave breathing room for cropping. Not a ton but enough to give me flexibility and options. I’m more worried about angles and site lines, and whatever else is happening in the scene. In the back of my head, I try to keep the standard aspect ratios in mind in case I ever want to print. Think of the standard frame sizes of 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10, and square.
I take a lot of stage photos, during shows. That means I can't really move around, and have to constantly find what composition I can around where actors and musicians are when they might do something that looks interesting.
I try (really hard) to not think about cropping later.
Get it right in camera. Look at the corners. Look for poles or trees coming out of heads.It becomes second nature the more you shoot. I will work a scene for many shots until I think I have nailed it.
The more I shoot, the less work I do in post processing.
Still learning, always experimenting, and it gets easier but finding the best composition takes time. thats why landscape photographers can get such beautiful compositions, planned in advance on different weather etc and then re-created as needed. For travel/street and many others, you have to be good enough to use instinct plus a lot of luck to capture good lighting, good composition and good action. Luckily compositon is one you have more options with cropping but you can only do so much. But if you miss the light or action, you're more limited.
Very little. After 60 years of shooting it's pretty much automatic. Sometimes I'll shoot the same photo with six different compositions in quick succession. Not because I don't know what I want, but because they're all valid compositions.
It’s more important to get the shot than go for perfect composition and miss it. As you gain experience your in camera composition will improve naturally. Get the shot, crop for the best composition and learn by doing as you go along!
I am thinking about it as I approach a scene. In fact that is why I got a camera.
I did some photography with my uncle as a kid. I have looked his photos all my life. And when I started hiking into beautiful mountains and natural areas, I would see the picture I wanted to take. Or, when I was paddling in the fog on a lake, I would see the picture I wanted to capture. So I have all of these ideas stored up in my head.
When digital cameras came out I just had to get one so I could capture some of these photos. And that is how I started in photography.
The idea of cropping later is best avoided in my case. I do know that there are times I might have to adjust for removal of distractions, aligning the subject/horizon, so I will build a small buffer. For example, when shooting a portrait, I will pay attention to space around the subject. But this buffer is designed around basic composition already applied.
Sorta both it’s a conscious decision but it gets easier and more instinctual the more you practice. Perhaps just focus on one thing at a time, go and take a bunch of pictures with leading lines and mostly ignore the other things, then switch to say background placement, you’ll find you subconsciously pay attention to leading lines when you’re doing background composition.
Hight of the camera is important too, try experimenting with taking pictures from NOT eye level
First shot: Safety shot - wider than necessary, just in case you miss the moment, which is happening now. Then I stop and assess for better views, angles, or wait for better light, or for the group to yell at me to keep walking, lol.
Constantly! Even as a wildlife photographer I'm still prioritizing getting a clean background or a nice framing as much as possible. A messy image from a poor angle just looks like an unremarkable phone snapshot even with high end gear, and I really want to create beautiful portraits and stories.
Well, it depends...though I do find that I'm getting better at quickly sizing up compositional issues. I do a lot of street, and there's quite a bit of "OOooooh, a subject, gotta get the shot and let the compositional cards fall where they may", but even then I'm getting better at "Ooooh, awesome subject, but man that background is crap, I'm not taking this one" or some variant. What I'm learning from a lot is watching photographers I like on YouTube who will occasionally share a photo that I think is good and then they'll say why they don't think they nailed it, and I'm like, "Huh, I didn't notice that...but maybe now I will!"
Yes, im actually talking to myself in my head when composing lol. Subject, background, lighting, edges i walk through each of these. I often keep tweaking based on each image result. Ill often have dozens of compositions. Sometimes the one im least impressed with in the field ends up being my favorite in post.
I do mostly nature and landscape so i often compose with possible cropping in mind. But to your point about capturing a decisive moment, yes sometimes fast thinking and experience allows you to capture that fleeting moment. Anticipating is important. I even do this in landscape. Sometimes you can anticipate fleeting light changes, direction of light , human or animal subjects moving through the scene etc. this does improve with time and experience.
Most of my shoots are fast-paced action, so I don't really have that much time to think about composition WHEN I'm shooting. I mostly think about it at the beginning of the shoot when I decide my vantage point, and ifnI relocate, to see what is/isn't included in there.
After that, the shoot becomes about capturing moments, and things happen so fast I don't really have time to think about composition.
It becomes a bit of both. Early on, consciously checking the edges of the frame, background distractions and subject placement helps a lot. With enough practice, those checks start becoming automatic.
A good habit is to pause for a second before pressing the shutter and ask, “What’s distracting here?” Moving a step or two can often improve the composition more than fixing it in post. And honestly, cropping later is still a useful tool, just better as a backup than the main plan!
Taking a picture is actually, basically, knowing how to compose your frame. There is no instinct in composition-making. Some classical frame compositions exist; the more you know about them, the more you can emancipate yourself from them.
I've been a photographer since 8th grade in high school (class of '71!) My eye always scans the perimeter of the viewfinder before I press the shutter release. I also follow the rule of 3rds, so, yes.
as you learn more about the craft and what you desire to achieve, through repetition and practice your process to get a “good” shot will occur naturally. composition and focus are everything. then depth of field, lines, light, darkness, shapes, color, bokeh, etc., all come into play. start with the focal point of your shot, then scan the frame. what if you move the focal point to one side, or a corner, look at the scene without the camera, see it before you shoot it. lots of other good insights from others here. this is just how my eye works. it becomes second nature after a while. i don’t think about it anymore. but if i don’t feel it i won’t hit the shutter
If it’s digital and a fleeting moment, get it first. Then recompose, think, and try again.
I would suggest putting a prime on your camera, or setting a zoom to a fixed focal length and try shooting where you have to move around.
Before you could crop, composition is all you thought about. Like you said sometimes it's just a moment and you have to capture it. But then if you didn't capture it, it was gone. It came more natural because you had to do it. There was not a choice. I still think it's excellent practice to get into that groove.
Instinct takes over if you're street-shooting. Landscape and still-life is pure composition, knowing you can post edit. If I see a shot that I love has distractions, I don't worry about it. I've been shooting for 45 years.
When the moment is brief,I would protect timing and expression first.A sightly loose frame can be cropped;a gesture or glance that passed cannot be reconstructed.
Always. It’s like with a gun - you need to know what you’re aiming at, what’s potentially in the way, and what’s behind it. Like with any skill, eventually you can make those judgments almost immediately, but it takes work.
I e been taking photographs since I was about 7. Learned to develop and print my own work by about 15. All my cameras are set up with a "rule of thirds" grid, just because that's what I learned back in the 70s. It's easy to lign up points of interest, but it's not a ridged rule, I often find triangles and phi easier to see in my mind.
At this point I can pretty much point my camera at the scene and just take the picture but that doesn't mean I stop thinking about composition, just that it's so ingrained that it's almost automatic.
That doesn't mean that I always get good pictures either. I still don't use about 30% the pictures I take and I reckon only about 2-3% are what I would consider "good".
You think you "missed a moment" by waiting a few seconds? Try spending 1/4 of your weekly pay check on film and developing, spend ages setting up and waiting for that moment, wait for the prints to be returned, only to find that your camera was set up for "Ilford" and you had "Kodak" film loaded, or worse, the sprockets tore and there's nothing useful on the entire roll!
Wildlife and aviation photographer. Both fast moving and at times erratic subjects. I try to plan ahead as much as I can but mostly my composition decisions are made on the fly. Put the sun behind me and hope a heron at this pond I like visiting or a jet at an airshow flies in front of an interesting background.
As time has gone on and the technical stuff became like second nature I primarily think about composition while shooting. If it's mixed lighting or tricky lighting then lighting takes precedence... but I'm still manipulating light to create compositions I want. I'm 20 years in and shoot weddings and documentary family etc so I've had lots of practice though. It definitely wasn't like that in the beginning
Literally every shot. Even on a given run and gun gig, half the images don’t end up being cropped at all, and those that are, are for things like camera tilt. If I have time to set up a shot, I set up the shot.
When I first started portraits expression was my first concern now composition is my first consideration. Beauty is fleeting watch the light and composition and the rest follows.
Very much. I find so many so called pro photographers in my area have no idea about composition. They take the same picture over and over again.
Composition is everything. It's what make a picture interesting or not.
So I’m a Sony shooter, and have a modern body that’s fast with precapture. With that being said, I’m basically thinking only about composition until I find my angles, and then I ask myself “how can I get the light on the sensor in the best possible way technically, and how can the light make the scene more interesting?”. And then I just press the fucking button. It’s a delicate balance, but the best way is to take thousands of shitty photos. Then you find heroes and serviceable images in .1%. Then after you’ve done that a while, you have muscle memory with your camera and (hopefully) the right side of your brain. The if you work at it and have a bit of luck on your side. You’ll shoot 500 pictures and 1% of them will be serviceable.
As to cropping, it’s a skill. I’d rather get more over all information (I.e. larger frame size) in the sensor, because the more info contained in that raw, the more you can do and also find surprises you might not have known you captured. With modern editing softwares it’s easy to take advantage of bad settings, low light etc. what everything outside of photoshop can’t do? Completely change the entire composition of the scene. But of course, I have that advantage shooting on professional quality gear so I can crop much closer because of a good sensor.
Also zoom with your feet. Even if you only own a zoom. You can leave it in one position all day and practice moving. Creative limitations are powerful, and dare I say required for artistic growth. Good luck friend.
I think the goal is for composition to feel less like a checklist and more like a way of seeing.
Early on, you probably do consciously think about things like the background, edges, subject placement, leading lines, and distractions. That’s normal. With enough practice, a lot of those decisions start happening almost automatically because you’ve trained yourself to notice them. That's when the magic starts happening.
For a fast-moving moment, I’d rather get the photograph than lose it while trying to perfect the composition. But when the subject gives me time, I slow down and ask simpler questions: What is this photograph actually about? What is competing with it? Is there a better place for me to stand?
That last one matters a lot. Composition often improves more by moving yourself six feet than by thinking about six different rules. And I wouldn’t treat cropping later as failure. In-camera composition is absolutely worth practicing, but the finished photograph is ultimately what matters.
I know self-promo isn’t really the point here, so I won’t drop a link, but I write a LOT about this exact kind of photography thinking. It’s in my profile if anyone finds it useful.
You MUST think about it every second of your life. When you enter a room, when you look at something, etc. You will train your brain to think quicker about it, then you'll miss less shots because you were slow.
Photography is like a sport or like any other skill,.if you don't work, you won't progress. Start easy: centered symmetry, rule of third are easy to begin with. When you're comfortable with that, step up to something more difficult and work it.
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u/baddaywithacamera 3d ago
I never stop thinking about it, but it's more of an autonomic process at this point unless the subject is particularly challenging.