A Brief View Of Photographic Composition
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- Опубликовано: 30 мар 2014
- A few pointers with examples to effective photographic composition. All the pictures are my own and I make no claim to their artistic content!
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See my M43 blog at m43blog.dthorpe.net/ 
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After 10 years still learn a lot from you. I'm a late viewer, rest in peace, David. Thank you so much
Great communication, David. Both, audio - your narrative - and video - your sample photographs!
Important rules told simply and with a sense of humour. To make us be aware that some rules are here to be broken.
Terrific video!
MrVoayer Thanks! It's such a personal thing composition, a huge part of a photographer's style. It's good to know the guides (I prefer that to rules) because they are useful pointers. But then you can branch out.
I don't now why David Thorpe does not have 250K+ subscribers . All of his videos are quite informative. His perspectives are fresh and genuine. There is no overload of banter nor musical fanfare. His style of narration is charmingly unique. Spread the word.
What can I say except that it's good to know that you enjoy the videos - and thanks.
It's a testament to how excellent your videos are that I periodically rewatch them. I really enjoy your exposition, pacing, humour, and excellent photographs. You have also got me to go and buy an Olympus 45mm 1.8, which is hopefully on the way.
+sverthSolaris I appreciate you telling me that and thank you! You'll enjoy the 45mm.
Photography lesson number one ! Thanks for your precious advice, not only technicals but also moral
Really appreciate your wonderful photos and your great advice. You are an understated person. Like many have said here, I find your videos concise and to the point. Very well thought out. I really enjoy them. Great job!
Isaac Chew Makes my day! Thanks you Isaac.
Hi David. I just discovered your channel recently, and have been following your advice for some of my recent purchases. One of them being the 12-50mm. Now, this particular video, is a gem. I just hope it lasted more, or that you made more videos about composition. Is so true when you get so excited with the scene in front of you, and your first thought is to include everything that you are seeing in the photo. And at the end is so busy, and uninteresting. Simplicity is the key. And is so true, even in cooking, the simpler the recipe, the better.
We are so lucky to have you at DPR as well.
Keep up the good work.
Martin Ocando Thanks Martin. I couldn't agree more about cooking. Good ingredients simply cooked to highlight the main flavours. I hadn't thought of it but, yes, photography is much the same.
Thank you for this David, I now understand what I do wrong and because of your excellent way of explaining things I can now correct my faults.You have also cost me money because I am now investing in an Olympus OMD camera. Once again thank you.
My friendly phone beeped in Boston about12 minutes ago to alert me to this post. A welcome break in my office routine. Happily I tuned in to this very informative insight of your life's work. Altogether as are your other postings, most generous and simultaneously modest. I don't know why but as I viewed this I went back to your Christmas video looking out on the life in West London's streets as seen from above your bicycle handlebars. Your breathing in the many narrow vehicle passageways amidst the holiday splendor was reassuring as is your steady firm narration of photographic perspective. I am certain to view this many many times as I am slow on the uptake but grateful that this work will be there for us to take in. Thank you sir.
I'm in Boston also. Maybe we should start a Micro 4.3 club. LOL
What a lovely post - thanks you.
Every halve year or so I come back to this video and see new things. Then I look at my own photos and pinpoint where they went wrong. In the process I learn a bit :)
Same way I learned , really, though I had the advantage of doing it for a living and so having many, many mistakes to learn from!
David, SUPER contribution---well organized, well thought out--not hurried, but no time wasted either. Awesome!
Thanks William!
Although I've heard or read most of this before, your words of wisdom here are well worth listening to. I hope I can keep it all in mind the next time I have my camera in my hands. Thanks for this one and please keep making videos like this.
Yes, there's no lack of information on composition in books and on the web. One of the reasons I do videos like this is that the research for them helps me sort things out in my _own_ mind! I'm glad you found it useful. It's comments like yours and others here that make it so rewarding.
This Video alone has giving me tips, ideas and knowledgeable thoughts... Your information is invaluable David. Thank you
Like someone said below, I keep coming back to this video just to ensure i'm taking it in...
I'm really glad about that Tim - thanks for telling me.
Good video David. I like the matter of fact way you describe things. This is often difficult to do with photography as it is subjective, however you do it very well, and post examples.
Dayle Thackeray Thanks Dayle. I agree, photography is a very subjective thing so I try to stick to what feels to me the bottom line of things, what most people would find useful. After that we are all on our own with no rules, which is what makes photography so endlessly fascinating.
your videos are very clear and concise. I know nothing about photography, just got my first descent camera ,a micro4/3, and starting watching your vids.
I hope my videos help - you just started out on a road to a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction?
Photos and delivery equally masterful, David!
Thanks!
Mr Thorpe, as always an educative, useful and entertaining video that as an enthusiast & adopter of MFT (partly your fault :) thoroughly enjoyed. And as you mention with great humour to some of our other commentators, unbeatable value for money :)
Thanks William!
Hi David, this is one of the best videos about photo composing I´ve ever seen, absolutly well done and very good statements !!
Paul Bocuse:"You´re allways taking brilliant pictures - you must have a really expensive camera." and then Helmut Newton:"And you`re allways cooking fanstastic dishes - you must have really expensive cooking pots." - so, photography and cooking is nothing without really good basics :)
+MrJueKa Very true.
Just bought an Oly OMD EM-5 (which I converted to a color IR) and just added this lens to my starter two. Thanks for your excellent video on it as I am new to the MFT world!
M C Dobbins Glad it was helpful. Fascinating thing to do, converting to IR. Brave too, it's a one way conversion, Ibelieve'
Thank you David. Very enjoyable and informative.
Nice to hear that - thanks, David.
Thanks for this video. You said many important things in a very simplified manner.
Dhanushka Weerasekara Thank you, Dhanushka!
Great video David Thorpe! You are a good photographer & educator too.
Thanks - I enjoy it and I suppose that what shows.
Excellent video, and excellent photographs.
Thanks for that much appreciated!
You got some very nice photo's! Thanks for sharing this info. I hope you make more videos like this with tip and tricks about photography. I like your down to earth style without all kinds of offtopic stuff. Today I got myself a 25mm F1.4 Panasonic :D I also tried the 20mm but I didn't like the focus of that lens it went tripping in the shop. And I prefer the build quility of the 25mm over the 20mm :)
Thanks! Yes, if you have the extra money for it the 25mm f1.4 is well worth shelling out for.
Informative and awesome. Your examples are great. I like and appreciate your experience. I've been playing with vignettes which help focus the attention.
A brief and enjoyable video.
Helene Kwong Thansk Helene
robbyboyo Yes, I love vignettes and sometimes they are a great way of getti8ng rid of annoying elements just outside the subject area that you couldn't avoid.
Great video David.
For landscapes for Micro 4.3 I sometimes will use Adobe Lightroom to fix the tilt-shift. I believe there is only one Micro 4.3 titl-shift lense for Micro 4.3 and its a 80mm lense.
This is a very good video on how to use Adobe Lightroom and simulate a tilt-shift lens.
Tilt-Shift/perspective corrections in Lightroom 3
Thanks for that. It's stuff like tilt-shift lenses that will kmake M43 into a truly profrssional system. In the meantime, thank goodnes for Loghtroom, I agree.
This is great. THanks for making this!
My pleasure!
Thanks. this is actually helpful for beginners.
MUSTDOS Good to hear that MUSTDOS, thanks.
Very nice presentation You certainly covered a lot of ground in a short period of time.
Thanks.
excellent vid David!
Thanks!
Useful video for one such as myself (an enthusiast / amateur photographer). I am hoping that one day you will be able to do reviews of cameras other than Micro Four Thirds. The Sony, Samsung and particularly the Fuji mirrorless cameras are well worth a look for a prospective buyer.
I'm glad the video was useful, thanks. It's unlikely that I'd be able to review any cameras other than MFT because I don't have any help from camera makers at all - neither Olympus or Panasonic respond to my emails, so I have to buy most of the stuff I review. That means that, having invested in MFT, I'm likely to continue using and reviewing that equipment. But thanks for the thought.
Fingers crossed, maybe one day, the camera manufacturers will realise the value of your videos and reviews. Then maybe we will see you reviewing the various manufacturers cameras. We can all hope and dream !!
freedriv082000 :-) Blush!
Very nice video and photos, btw: where is that statue in Belgium?
Thanks! The statue is at De Panne, Belgium. Coordinates 51°5'46" N 2°34'15" E - handy, this GPS location on images.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Excellent video as always. Please keep them coming I like your presentation style, and ignore the negative idiot(s)! Thanks.
Thanks Kevin. I'm as open to criticism as any of us but there's the occasional character who seems to need to be insulting as well. I put it down to an unhappy childhood :-)
Thank you David, it's a really good video. I like photographers that can tell me what happened with a picture. More rarely some tell us what will probably happen or what can happen. They've got a talent to shoot at the right moment to explain dynamic things. Should it be a good video subject for you ?
Thanks Francis - good thought, I'll keep it in mind.
you are the best! sorry if i bother you..but i have a question. if i change aspect ratio from 4:3 to 3:2 in jpg mode..will i lose some megaxipels? thanks:)
Thanks Camillo! Yes, you do lose pixels.The change of aspect ration simply crops the image. So if the image was 4000x3000 in 4:3 it would be 4000x2666 in 3:2. You could just shoot 4:3 and crop but most people find it easier to shoot at the aspect ratio they intend to use for ease of composition. The 3:2 DSLR aspect ration wasn't an aesthetic choice - it was forced on the Leica by the film stock available at the time their cameras were invented. 4:3 is much more natural (in my opinion!).
David Thorpe thank you a lot sir! very kind of you! have a good day!
This is a very helpful video for a relative novice such as myself. The exposition is lucid but not academic, humorous and succinct. The photos are great. I was interested to hear you challenge the conventional wisdom that wide angle lenses are mandatory for landscapes (my main area of interest). The trend seems to be towards ever wider, and more expensive, wide angle zooms. May I add that I think it is a shame that people make offensive comments. People have a right to deprecate if they think your videos fall short in some way, but not to be insulting. Opinions should always be relevant and expressed in a civil manner. Thanks Dave.
Michael Wrest Thanks Michael and I'm glad you enjoyed it. The ultra wide zooms are exciting bits of kit but I don't find them particularly useful for landscape. There's an assumption that landscape means 'get it all in' but less is often more. As I say, I find the 45mm on MFT as good a landscape lens as any and in mountainous regions a 100 or even 200mm can give a greater sense of scale than a wide lens. The comments, I agree. The vast majorityof people make comments that are a pleasure to read and like yours add to our collective appreciation of photography. There are a few who think that they are the arbiters of 'the truth' but that's life and they are the losers in the end.
Enjoyed!
That what they're for :-)
Nice video, thanks!
Thank you!
Thank you
francesco marullo Me? Moral? Thanks Francesco.
posted link on DP Review. Good stuff as usual
They're a tough bunch over there - I'll be interested to see the comments! Thanks Daphne.
Mr. Thorpe I think you can really up the quality of your videos if you start recording temp sound. It's basically just recording 30 seconds or so of ambient room sound so that you can put it in-between your audio cuts. That way when you cut to another audio clip, it doesn't sound as abrupt.
Instead of going from speaking with background noise to dead silent and back again, you go from speaking with background noise to just background noise, to speaking again. Much less jarring!
Hi - yes someone else told me the same thing so I'm taking it on board. I know very little about audio, which strikes me as one of the hardest parts of making a video.
Thanks for taking the trouble to tell me. Next time, a background track. I'd appreciate it, if you see the next video (whenever), if you'd tell me whether it is better and if not how to improve it. Meantime, I need to find out if I can add an ambient track to this one.
+E Miff I cant seem to reply directly. Does anyone understand why some people can be replied to and some can't? It's a comment on my video, I don't see why I should be prevented from replying to anyone. Anyway, I'm glad you found the video useful and. You're thanking me for costing you money? :-) Seriously, you'll love an O-MD. Those levely bog veiwfinders are great for composing pix.
I'm using the latest Firefox and I cannot post comments to any video trough youtube. David Thorpe, do you happen to use Firefox too? I'd guess it may be because of Firefox tracking protection. I'll try to solve this problem...
Ilja Sara I use Chrome so it doesn't look like a Firefox problem. I think it may have something to do with Google+ but I've yet to yet anyone who understands Google+ and I read they are going to change it all anyway so it's probably not worth finding out anyway.
Ah. Our problems seem to have different roots then. I managed to solve my problem partially.
+David Thorpe I think the issue is that RUclips comments are mixed in with Google+ Shares. So someone shares your video on Google+ with their friends, but perhaps their privacy settings only allow friends to comment on it. I wish Google would separate them.
+sverthSolaris Thanks for the explanation. Yes, I wish Google would do something about it too.
***** As a new photographer, I like Tom Ang books (I got his excellent digital photography an introduction off amazon for less than £10), also check out Mike Brown or Tony Northrup on youtube or steeletraining.com/
Or if you want a quick overview of what people are talking about check out this blog I wrote after a couple of weeks of research - robertwhittaker247.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/aperture-aperture-aperture/
I had to plug it somewhere. I really need to write another one.
Thanks for the recommendations Robert. Have ordered the Tom Ang book to begin with!
***** Thanks Kia. I don't really know any particular sites or books but maybe someone else can help?
David I post this video on Reddit check it out.
www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/21v3jz/a_brief_view_of_photographic_composition/
Your photographs are largely awful. If you're going to preach about composition, use better examples. Don't use your own work because you want the promotion, use good examples because it's a better teaching aid.
Photography is subjective but unfortunately disrespect and rudeness is not. Mr. Thorpe's photography may be "largely awful" to you, but to me its wonderful and inspirational.
***** Do you think what you say is a matter of opinion or is what you say the definitive view _de haute en bas_? Awful as my pictures may be, I have earned a good living with them all my life so I must be doing something right for some people, at least.
The point you miss is that I don't preach, I just give my opinion. In order to preach I would need to take the same lofty view as you - and I don't.
Eric Lawson Thanks Eric. Mr Drifter lack a few of the social graces, I fear :-)
Another internet warrior who wouldn't dream of saying such things face to face. Perhaps try expressing your opinion without being so rude?
I would have no qualms about having a very frank and open discussion with this photographer. I get into critiques a lot with other photographers and don't hold my feelings back. People sometimes don't like my approach but I feel like photography is such a saturated and competitive field that if you aren't speaking bluntly and honestly you're not doing the photographer a service. The truth is he really shouldn't be using his own photos as a form of instruction because he's not qualified and the pictures aren't strong enough. It's kind of a shitty thing to do, anyway. I generally don't like overt self promotion to begin with, but when it's somebody who is speaking from the pulpit without genuine qualifications it's a bit of an insult. It would be more useful to his viewers and less scummy to find photographs that drive the point home better than what his work can portray.