Tips for Creative Composition in Portrait Digital Photography

March 30, 2010

One of the simplest ways of giving your portraits more impact is to vary the composition and poses you use. If you always have the person standing in the middle, your pictures are quickly going to be as predictable as another re-run of Last of the Summer Wine.

Thus, make some changes and don’t always have someone strictly in the centre. Experiment for a while and check what will happen when you place them more to one side. You will be surprised to find out that just a minor change will make a huge difference to the balance of the photo and a viewer’s experience of it. The rule of thirds is one of the best-known compositional rules. It means that you divide the picture up into nine squares. If you frame the shot so that the person occupies 2/3 of the picture, it will be dynamic but still in balance. The sense of drama will increase when you move them further to the side.

It is also true if you put them lower in the picture, with more space above them than it is normal. However, there is one thing that you should know. When it comes to composition nothing is right and nothing is wrong; it’s all subjective. If it seems good to you, and if it is effective, go with it.

You can create more interest by changing your height in relation to the person. If you lie down and look up at them, or find an elevated area and look down at them, the effect will be completely different. With the first approach you will make them look tall, elongating the legs and the body; in the second approach, the head will be the most prominent thing, with the body and legs receding.

In addition, you might think about a diagonal composition (normally the digital camera should be tipped 30 to 45 degrees from the horizontal). Provided that everything is done well, it can really make the photo look more appealing.

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