photography tips | composition pt. 1

I know I promised more photography tips sooner, but I have been letting time get away from me and therefore not being terribly productive with the time I have.  It's a new month so what better time to begin again.  

Anyway, today I would like to talk about a few composition tricks for improving your photography.  I originally planned on sharing a lot more but decided to break it up into 3 parts to help it be less overwhelming and perhaps give you a chance to practice.  

Perhaps one of the most commonly used and popular tricks is the Rule of Thirds.  Imagine two horizontal lines intersecting with two vertical lines making nine even squares in your photo.  The idea is that you place the subject of your photo along those lines or their intersections.  

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The above was taken during a snowy walk around my neighborhood.  I loved the pop of color against the snowy white.  See how the subject, the playground, is off-center in the left third of my image?  This may be my favorite, go-to way to compose a photograph. 

A second favorite is Framing.  This technique draws attention to your subject by blocking out other parts of the image with something else in the scene.  

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I was visiting my aunt and uncle who live in Bay Village, a suburb outside of Cleveland, on Lake Erie.  We walked down to the lake from their house to get some fresh air.  Without the trees, I am not sure you, or I for that matter, would notice the tiny sailboat in the distance.  However, the trees' leaves frame the image very nicely to bring focus to what I wanted to point out. 

One more is to simply get Close-Up.  Regardless if you are shooting with a point-and-shoot, phone, or your nice DSLR, if you want to get a close-up of a scene the best thing you can do is to simply move closer to what you want to capture.  I know it's easier to sometimes zoom in but that just results in yucky grain that is not easy to eliminate in post processing.  

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This was my first photograph I took of my Mother-in-law's beautiful sunflower garden.  I got as close to the flower as I could and captured this shot.  I also really love the bokeh that was created in the background. 

I hope this all made sense for you and helped.  While Rule of Thirds, Framing, and Close-up are rules that photographers like to follow, rules are made to be broken.  Get creative.  Now, it's your turn to get out and shoot away!  

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 Linking up with Nicole and Ash today!