Composition in Photography: Let's start here
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- Опубликовано: 7 июл 2024
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Composition is the basis of photography and understanding it will lift your work to the next level. In this video, I want to share an exercise that helped me about 20 years ago - a technique that I still use today and every time I pick up a camera.
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On my channel you will find videos about photography, cinematography, post processing tutorials for Capture One, Lightroom and Photoshop, photo assignments that YOU can participate in, the Artist Series and more. The Artist Series is an ongoing set of videos I produce as documentaries on living photographers. I am extremely passionate about photography and video and my goal in making these videos is to share my passion and enthusiasm with you! Don’t forget to subscribe and make sure to hit the like button and share this video if you enjoyed it!
Ted Forbes
The Art of Photography
2830 S. Hulen, Studio 133
Fort Worth, TX 76109
US of A 
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So glad to see this. Need more of the content that actually talks about Photography rather than gear 😄
Very valid and critical point. Sadly, I believe the RUclips algorithm favors content that sells stuff over those that teach. Plus, it's easier and somewhat less painful for me to buy more gear thinking that will improve my skillset over submitting my work to receive constructive critique.
@@JaySellersAgreed. The gear videos have tricked many including myself into believing that gear will make up for a lack of skill and a deficit in photographic progress. There are some great lesser known channels that don't discuss gear at all. Just listing them FYI - 1) Dan Milnor 2) Photographic Eye 3) Advancing You Photography 4) T. Hopper 5) Adam Marelli 6) Digital Photography Courses 7) Santa Fe Workshops 8) John Free!
Edit: I will update the list the more hidden gems I find!
@@whakabuti aows too
@@whakabuti Thank you!! There's so much fabulous content that gets buried. Appreciate you highlighting these photographers/channels. Two of my favorite channels are Jamie Windsor (who does some gear reviews but has many *brilliant* videos on the art of photography) and Sarah Marino (not many videos, but all long-form and in-depth and totally art./composition focused).
Amen
I had a teacher that emphasized the value of making a lot of variants on your ideas: If you got creative block, he'd have us write a list of 20 ideas on how where the story/project should go next. They could be terrible, obvious, mediocre, etc... it didn't matter.
Somewhere around item 15, you'd usually start to run out of obvious ideas, and most of the time, the best idea on the list was one of the last 4 or 5. It's an effective way to allow yourself creative freedom without judgment, and to force your brain to get out of the "lane" its stuck in, and explore other concepts. Sometimes the idea would be so wildly different it would give ideas on how to improve other areas of the project.
Later, in my Black and White photography/film development class, we had a similar assignment, where we had to shoot an entire roll of a single subject, with no shots looking too similar. I remember how much better the later photos were, both for myself and most of the other students.
When working on a project, I'll often get the "safe" shots at the beginning; partly to make sure I have something I can fall back on, partly so I can just start without having to stress about the first shot too much. But most of the time, those "safe" shots don't end up in the final project. When shooting something like a person crafting, there's often tons of repeated steps, and you have time to move around and get the same action from a dozen camera angles. Those later angles are almost always more interesting and dynamic, because I've already explored the obvious stuff, forcing me to be more creative and to take risks with the composition.
These kind of exercises seem simple, but I often wish that my own graphic design classes had spent more time on these kinds of exercises, and less on the software. The software is easy enough to learn with all the resources online we have now, the actual exercises require you to put in the work; something people are much more likely to do if their grade depends on it.
Beautifully said! Just dish stuff out, you can always come back later and choose what's working or not.
These kinds of exercises force you to think without any restrain, for me sometimes I'd even add a timer (for example 30s a sketch and then move on) to not let my brain have time to overthink.
It's exhausting at first, but absolutely worth it for your creativity & freedom of thinking.
This is some proper old school AoP stuff. No tech review but instructional aesthetics topics. That's why I subscribed in the first place and I really appreciate any minute of it.
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I returned later in life to College for Photography. It was a fulfilling experience. One of my instructors was my son's HS Chemistry instructor. We had many discussions about adult learning and teen aged learning, and apples and trees, etc. One exercise we did after your so nicely explained figure ground, was using what my instructor called "Cropping "L's." We took an 8x10 or 11x14 picture Mat and cut them at opposite corners so we could collapse or expand the "Frame" to choose our "Ground" dimensions. Then we changed out point of vie for a fixed scene to not only subtract elements butt to make the visual organization the most pleasing, compelling, powerful or harmonious. We moved to make leading lines, align elements on thirds or groups of 2 or 3. It is the next step while still leaving that distracting dial and button laden camera in the bag. The following exercise after break was learning to "Work a scene" with vertical and horizontal compositions, high camera angle low camera angle. Near far, close up almost filling the frame with an element while others fall away into a negative space or background. Except for an intolerable "Drop Rate" you could do an entire semester on this. Needless to say, the "L's" stayed in our bag and we'd use them regularly as the class progressed. Think the cliché Movie Director using his hands to create a frame. I still use it today. And remember Dale Boyer from Foothill College in San Mateo CA.
Wow!! Thank you for sharing your technic. I'll have to try this soon. ❤
Thank you, Ted. This is exactly the type of content which caused me to follow you several years ago.
The comparison with drawing / painting (adding) and photography (subtracting) is such a powerful concept ....I’ve never heard that from anyone before and yet it’s so simple and obvious, once you’ve explained it - brilliant!! I’ll definitely do the practical exercises and photograph each arrangement. Such fantastic stimulation - thanks - Peter.
I remember this exercise in my design class, my prof kept referring to "tension" and it took me half the semester to figure out what he was talking about. I still do this exercise in my sketchbook.
Fascinating! Can you describe “tension”? Thanks!
You took the words right out of my mouth about how easy college is when you don’t have to be there.
beautiful!
and once again, we need more of these bossman.
I have learned so much from you, that l am happy to teach you something now.
Kertész is a hungarian name, means Gardener in english. The pronounciation for americans: Kartays
We need more of this straight educational content. To the point and practical. Thank you.
I also really appreciate you sharing this. Its hard to find someone on YT who really shares the Art. Tech is everywhere, but sharing this kind of knowledge destroys the need to be grasping after the latest and greatest gear, and allows you to fully utilize what camera have in your hand to maximum effect. Please, keep up this series on composition and seeing skills.
Wow. You my new friend are a phenomenal teacher. I’m only 5 minutes in but you teach very very well
as someone with a background in mixing music, I immediately noticed the similar way the exposure triangle was to noise chain/gating was in music. it helped me understand immensely
This is by far my favorite youtube channel. I learn so much from you and I recommend your videos for literally everyone that asks me for photography tips! You are amazing!!
thanks for this! I usually talk a lot of negativity on RUclips and troll people but you are just genuine and teach. love it.
I had a little chuckle watching this, many years back I did a course on the Graphic perception of space and we did the same sort of things. You are hitting on the fact that there are many compositional tools that can be used and it's good to hear you talking about it. Bravo.
Beautiful! Similar to what I had to do when i was learning visual communication in college. For those of us who might not want to use paper and scissor we can also do it on Illustrator, Affinity Designer, or Procreate. Don’t let the medium be the obstacle!
Watching your video for 15 minutes, I have learnt more about squarespace than I did in the whole week
This will require a second viewing. Excellent information and guidance.
Dear Ted. I follow you since years and this kind of content is the reason why I joined you in the first place. Don't get me wrong. I understand the economics behind the gear reviews and I do enjoy them. But I have to say, that this is maybe the most important video for my photography. I instantly look differently through the finder, think more about composition and variation than ever before. So, long story short: Thank you so much for this video, your compassion and for letting us all here be part of your journey.
So excited for this. I hope this is a series. We need more of these. Discussions about theory of visual art, rather than gear.
SUBTRACTIVE. That’s it. I have discovered that as an artist I am both a photographer and a sculptor. In design school, sculpting models of my products or cars was my favorite practice, and it does explain my affinity for photography as well. I first discovered the concept through Ken Rockwell’s article on photographic art.
This is the content we need now.
I was a drummer for a long time, always did "Art" from Childhood, and ended up using a camera to document equipment on Cell Towers for the Big 3.
Wanted to improve my skillset, and took a graphic design class at the local community college in 2003.
The last 3 pages of the photography text book were about "digital".
Almost everything I've learned since has been through looking at other Artists work, not just Photographers. The trick is to internalize the "techniques" in order to recognize the potential.
Great Video, and funny how similar our paths were back in the early 2000's.
Sir you are blowing my mind with these videos. This is going to sound very egotistical but I’ve always had a natural eye for photography and have NEVER desired to learn from others but as I age I am starting to finally let my ego down and learn from others that do the same things and man am I glad I am. Thank you
Good topic so often overlooked in these days of camera and software reviews on most of the channels.
Thanks for much for this video. I did do the exercise for fun and I am having my photo students do it as well. Thanks Ted for your continued inspiration. I have been watching you for years. I started out watching your videos when I was learning photography on my own and I still do years later after earning my MFA in photography. Thanks for all the information and inspiration. You have a real impact on the photo world, don't forget that brother!
Wow. 15 minutes on one breath. Respect!
Great Video Ted!
Composition is my passion and Decomposing what is available is the best way to learn its power. Comparing works of master photographers with less advance ones will get you there if you put your mind to see what works and what does not work. The most common error is the inclusion of an object that just doesn’t pair up with the other elements and destroys its simplicity.
Decomposing Words also help me a lot. Going out of the conventions of how words are essentially used in a sentence has brought me to seek their initial meaning and how they are used today. Here I learn that 1 and 1 does not make 2 because nobody questioned if the ones were really ones. And one can use that to his advantage and be an original just by detecting how you decode things, whether they are words or images.
In photography much the same happens, one circle with another on a ground do not create just two circles. On a plane (ground) their interaction comes at play and offers much more the initial elements. One creates his own language, like words, in creating sentences that are unique to his interpretation.
The same practice can be use when creating a portfolio. The interaction between images and the space between them with the correlation of telling a story within each plane, each pages, applies here also.
I also trained with graphic design and it has help me with framing my subjects in keeping only the stronger elements works compositionally.
I much await your future lessons on composition Ted!
I really love how you take time to explain things thoroughly and with detail! Very informative and easy to follow!
I got two big take-aways from this video; an exercise that I will do, and an introduction to a photographer that I will research more. Thanks for this type of content.
A usual Ted, you gave us a Masterclass. I remember my first semester of photo class, teacher ask for alphabet made of objects a great excercise to training the eye.
This is a great exercise I did something similar when I took intermediate photography we had an assignment of implying shapes and leading lines and yes I still think about it too it's a great tool
The way you talk is so smooth, just a constant uninterrupted flow of relevant useful information, it's super soothing for the brain ! Thank you 😁
I’m a student studying a BA (Hons) in the Uk on photography. I love the content of your videos and it has has become another educational tool for me, that is much appreciated. Thank you
I've started a Graphic Design educations in January this year. And we did this exact exercise a couple of weeks ago :) So still valid in 2021 :)
I really like the direction your taking now.
Thanks for another great video.
After having taken photography classes in high school and college, and doing a lot of B/W, photography, I am now trying to learn how to draw on my own. I am trying to remember, or re-learn, the elements of composition. So thank you for this, and your other videos on composition.
Ted, great great great exercise to learn how to see, and compose. Thank you for creating it. Videos by other people only talk about it, or show photographs and talk about composition, but you actually get down to the nuts and bolts of how shapes relate to each other. I can't thank you enough, WOW! Very eye opening.
I needed this video. I will definitely try this exercise.
Photography is just an hobby for me, only recently I decided to invest a lot of time in it and I think I didn’t progress through the years because of my lack of this kind of vision. I will start from scratch again, with one lens (25mm on aps-c, so 37mm) and with black and white to understand better how the composition works
Thank you for your inspiring videos
Honestly, this is the kind of photography content that i like the most, because it helps to understand and really get better at photography 😄. Thank you, Ted.
My career has been spent in construction. I once asked a foreman how he chose a carpenter to employ. He told me that he looks at his tools. Are they good quality, has the man invested in his tools so he can produce his best work? Then how has he looked after them, are they clean and sharp? There are so many gear reviews; tool reviews, but few on how to use them, on the craft. Thanks for this excellent video and I hope you'll prepare more like this.
So cool to see educational videos back on your channel, I've been missing it.
This is the best photography RUclips channel I’ve found. Keep up the good work!
I highly recommend Jamie Windsor also, if you haven't seen his channel.
Love that you took the focus beyond photography with this. Simple concept but huge impact. I'm gonna keep white shapes next to my computer's black pen tablet!
Love this, thank you. Andre Kertesz has always been one of my favorite photographers and for many years I had a framed poster on my wall of the photo he took of the man walking in Central Park. Your videos are inspiring.
A very philosophical conversation. Painting is an additive process, photography is a subtractive process. Thinking about how that could be, a painter takes his canvas and adds elements that he wants to paint onto the canvas. With a photographer, you have the entire world in front of you. Depending on how you position yourself, you take a photo of only a small amount of the world. What you chose to photograph, you subtracted from the entire vista of what was in front of you.
Or - you subtracted everything else to leave just what you want in your composition.
Gratitude Ted, I am in the process of revisiting Betty Edwards trilogy through the eyes of someone that has been exposed to Julia Cameron’s Artist Way trilogy & the efforts of Danny Gregory. One nugget I think might serve the intertextual insights you are illuminating here are her 5 questions for saturation (Via Drawing on the Artist Within p127): Perceive the edges; Negative Spaces Relationships & Proportions; Chiaroscuro (light and dark, but also illuminated and obscured, known and unknown); and Gestalt. It’s one of those things we need the artistic & creative community to read & develop multiple insights to how one would apply these 5 ways of cogitating & accreting towards creative insights.
this bring me back to my first year of Graphic design. Not that long ago, but goss did I understood nothing until the very end of that specific class.
By far the best video/excercise that has helped to improve my composition. It's so simple to do yet so incredibly effective . My composition improved almost immediately ! Thank you Ted, much ,much appreciated!
Wow..this changes everything
You are such a good teacher.
I followed this exercise, this is a really good way to see the relationship between the ground and figure. Thank you!
That's exactly the content I like this channel for!
Glad to see some CURRENT tutorials about composition! Keep up thre great work...
This might be the most important video I've ever watched for my photography. Thank you for this!
This is amazing. In this short video he changed view. Well explained.
You mentioned harmonious really quickly; I'll expound on it.. I had experience in pre-Internet desktop publishing.. Making advertisements, flyers, menus, page layout for catalogs and periodicals, etc... No formal training, just on the job training that didn't pay well but it was a great teacher.. My job with the mouse/software/laserwriter was simply to make a harmonious document. Great thoughts on using the space as a whole was necessary just as in photography.. Later studying photo history, Arther Wesley Dow spoke on harmony in composition and I could immediately understand what he was talking about as a concept.
Ted, thanks for sharing this exercise. It's a good one! Working through it, I can see where you can take lessons from this exercise and apply them to real life compositional situations. Great to have access to lessons like this one that can be watched time and again. Thanks!
I had no idea you had an education in music! I did as well. I graduated from a conservatory with my masters in violin. I try to apply as much as possible from what I learned in that world.
Brilliant, I always find your take on photographic vision insightful, and I always come away with something to try or change. Thanks a million for sharing. ☘️
This is a great exercise! In my other life as a cartographer I teach the same concepts of Figure-Ground and Visual Hierarchy, but for map design specifically. Going to add a link to this video in my Photo Composition Cheat Sheet blog, but I think my fellow map makers will find it interesting as well. Cheers.
could you share the link to your blog, please? Thanks
This is the kind of video that I would like to see more and more on this channel. You are really great to inspire and explain.
Doing the exercise right now in a Canva document, thank you for this!! What a wonderful and helpful channel. Appreciate you
thank you.... really needed this in these dull times, something to start on again; to see things differently.
Bravo! As I watch this I think of all the photographs I’ve taken in my life.
Loved your style to teach
Liked instantly! I remember you saying that you were thinking of resisting your composition videos Ted and can't wait to watch this.
Yay. This is why I subscribed, but I probably hadn’t been here for a year. Thank you
Well done. At some point the school of life... or the school of 'hard knocks' shines through more than a paper certificate does. You have always shined through as well educated in the fine arts, so this shows you have schooled yourself well.
Always thought you had a classic education in photography and art. Thanks for the video.
Will definitely do the exercise. Thanks Forbes!
Excellent excercise Ted Forbes, yes it will force ones eyes to look at things differently plus adding the preconceived notion to excecute a better "decisive moment"! Thanks for all you share in your wonderful channel.
Learning photography late in life and your videos are helping immensely! I really admire you. Thank you so much 😊
Thanks!!!
Its always great for a refresher. Thanks for sharing Ted.
Clear, concise and best of all a fascinating learning experience. Thank you
Man i am glad u r back, I am leaning so much from u! I promise, I am going trough this exercise, it make so much sense to me. THX very much. like your videos very much!
This is really cool, definitely going to share with a couple people I know starting to learn photography. One thing I realized is that composition is super important
Thank you for the courage to step away from actual camera/photographs and talk about more fundamental art knowledge.
Love it Ted, I can honestly say I was enthralled, many thanks. I have been a long time subscriber, since a few months in and enjoy the channel greatly, all the best.
This is awesome. I feel like I’m thinking in this way for my filmmaking all the time. I’m not really a still photographer, but I think the principles are the same. Everything in the frame should have some kind of relation to everything else in that frame. Similar to the concept that everything you do in your life affects everyone else around you. It might not be tangible, or obvious, but that kind of energy always exists. At least that’s what I keep in the back of my mind whenever I am shooting a film. It’s all about relationships. :-) Thanks so much for sharing, I love coming to this channel.
Great to see you getting back into what truly photography is about and not about the equipment (including your love of Sony). Hopefully you will go back and do another artist series
Ted, welcome back !!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Thank you, really liked this one. I have followed you for years, and I actually do have (several) degrees in photography 😊 I find your channel and content really interesting and informative, would highly recommend your content for everybody interested in the art of photography 👏👍👊😊
As I watched you move the paper around I kept hearing John Free saying, two of a kind... three of a kind 😊
Thank you so much for this great lesson/exercise on composition!
Magnificent lecture and playful exercise!
Fabulous Ted! I love these types of exercises. Please do more videos like this. Thank you sir!
Such a simple and powerful lesson. Thank you
The real AOP. Thanks for sharing, Sir.
I am so interested in composition. This is such a great exercise. Thanks Ted.
Will definitely pratice this one!!!
This was incredible…a great way to approach the creative process.
Man, I love your videos.
Excellent presentation of the basics of composition. This exercise applies to all visual art. So many get stuck in a genre or niche. Balance is balance.
Thanks for the excellent refresher. 😁
I did a course in Mass Communication in India, and our professor Rajeev Lochan, the then-director of the National Gallery of Modern Art, gave us similar exercises; we pretty much spent the whole year cutting lines of various thicknesses and pasting them. We didn't get to use different shapes until almost the end of the year.
I ended with a collage of the famous portrait of Che Guevara.
Having just received a new camera and being stuck living in a dorm room for 6 months, this is exactly the sort of exercise I needed right now. Thank you!
The best way to show that arrangement result in composition I know, are the forest compositions. Branches going everywhere are huge affected by the composition where they eventually become well organized. It cames from chaos to deterministic chaos.
This is a great exercise. Love this.
Really great video! It does not only teach something but it actually shows you how to learn more.. Many thanks for sharing this! I think that composition is something that most struggle with from a certain moment. All the technical aspects of creating images can be learned quite easy by comparison and there are tons of materials to help one do that but cmposition is something far more complex and somewhat subtle. I am really grateful for this and looking forward to more videos on this topic!