Learning composition?

So I have the basics down for shooting through Understanding Exposure and I also read up on how to properly manage my flash by reading On-Camera Flash Techniques for Digital and Wedding Photography. Now I want to get more into properly composing pictures.

I'm eyeing this book:

http://www.amazon.com …oks&qid=1264692​500&sr=8-2

Anyone have experience with it? Any other recommendations?

I have it and it's very good. The 1st time you read it, it'll probably overwhelm you, but then you read it again and it's not as bad as you 1st thought.

I liked that one a lot.

Composition Articles library

Load your image & see how it works in the Composition Adjuster.

If it anywhere is as good as another older book by Michael Freeman about composition elements in photos, it would be a great book to purchase. I have this book by him...

http://www.amazon.com …oks&qid=1264699​450&sr=1-1

Great book! But requires multiple reads.

The other way to learn is pick any photo and crop it many ways on the computer. Then examine each crop to see why one works better than the others. Do this with a lot of photos. Then while shooting, you can attempt to get that good comp without cropping.

Another practical exercise you can try is to go to the Critique forum here on POTN https://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdis​play.php?f=12 and look at other people's work with a critical eye. Try to figure out what works and what doesn't, and then analyze why.

You should also look at how painters use composition, that's where the "rules" came from in the first place. Here are some nice resources:
http://www.nga.gov/onl​inetours/index.shtm
http://www.ibiblio.org​/wm/paint/

stsva wrote in post #9490536
You should also look at how painters use composition, that's where the "rules" came from in the first place. Here are some nice resources:
http://www.nga.gov/onl​inetours/index.shtm
http://www.ibiblio.org​/wm/paint/

Great idea!

My wife is a painter and we FINALLY have something in common to talk about when I started looking at paintings for composition clues.

the photographer's eye is a text book on composition, very comprehensive. tells me way more than i want to know about composition. great book!

banpreso wrote in post #9490818
the photographer's eye is a text book on composition, very comprehensive. tells me way more than i want to know about composition. great book!

+1 It does take a few reads though. Way more than I ever wanted to know about composition

There's some good information about controlling perspective in your images right here in the forum's stickies. Please read our "sticky" (now found in the General Photography Talk forum) tutorial titled Perspective Control in Images - Focal Length or Distance?.

Bryan Petersons's "Learning to see creatively" iS also a good read

http://www.amazon.com …oks&qid=1264714​183&sr=1-3

It's a great book, and it will require multiple reads.

I've reread it 8 or 9 times now, and I always pick up something new or something else sort of "falls into place".

I highly recommend it.

BIG + for the Freeman book, The Photographer's Eye. Very interesting, relevant examples and concise (though a little sparse) text. Well worth it and very valuable information. My shooting style is slow to change, so what this book has done for me is that it has made me a much better editor of my own work. After shooting, I am much more decisive on what shot to work on and what shots to forget, and more importantly, I know why.


Another recommendation is Perception and Imaging: Photography - A Way of Seeing by Richard Zakia. This it a little bit more scholarly than the Freeman book, delving more into perception, how we see, how the brain interprets and makes sense of what we see, and how to use that to create better photographs. (4 stars on Amazon, but clearly not for everyone, Eleven 5's, Two 2's and Two 1's - personally, I am in the same camp as the Eleven.)