Fine Art Composition Top 15

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”-Albert Einstein

1. Composition is the strongest way of seeing.

• This is Edward Weston’s definition of composition.
• It is still my favorite definition of composition.

2. Composition is not just the placement of objects in the frame.

• Composition also involves using color, contrast and light.
• Composition includes post processing in the raw converter and in Photoshop.

3. The goal of composition is to express your vision and your emotional response to the scene.

• The goal of Fine Art Composition is not to create a documentary representation of the scene.
• Nor is it to create a photograph that is only technically perfect.
• The goal is to create an image that is superior, both expressively and technically.

4. What the camera captures is objective. What the artist’s sees and feels are subjective.

• Take stock of your emotional response to the scene in front of you.
• Record those emotions in writing or in audio.
• Use light, color, contrast, composition and cropping to reproduce these emotions visually.
• Work on this not in the field and in the studio.

5. Think first about light.

• A photograph is only as good as the light you use.
• The subject is less important than the light that illuminates this subject.
• The best subject in bad light does not make for a good photograph.

6. Use foreground-background relationships.

• Find a great foreground and place it in front of a great background.
• Make sure your foreground is large enough to play an important role in the composition.

Badwater, Death Valley National Park, California.

7. Contrast opposite elements.

• Human beings think and see in terms of opposites.
• Therefore this is something everyone can relate to.

Opposite examples:

• Static / moving
• Young / old
• Large / small
• Organic / man-made

8. Composing a photograph is not about redoing what someone else has done before.

• If tempted to redo an image you have seen, just buy the postcard, the book or the poster.
• You cannot be someone else, therefore you cannot take the same photographs as someone else.
• You will waste time trying to do so.
• Instead, start to create your own images right away.

9. Being inspired and redoing someone else’s work are two different things.

• You can certainly be inspired by the work of other photographers.
• We have all been inspired by the work of other artists and photographers.
• This is an inherent aspect of the artistic process.

10. No amount of technology can make up for a lack of inspiration.

• Cameras and other gears are technical.
• Inspiration is artistic.
• The two exist on different planes.
• Achieving a Personal style in Fine Art means working as an artist not just as a technician.

11. People, not cameras, compose photographs.

• Certainly, a camera is a necessity.
• However, your camera cannot compose a photograph anymore than your car can drive itself.

12. “Correct” is whatever works when the goal is to create fine art.

• There is no such thing as “the right thing” in art.
• “What is Art?” is a question to which there are many answers.
• We therefore have to answer this question for ourselves.
• We are also bound to disagree with others because fine art is a polarized activity.

13. Straight fine art prints are a myth.

• All fine art prints are a modification of the image recorded by the camera.
• The composition of the image you started in the field is continued in the studio
• This is done through image optimization because colors, contrast, borders, image format, etc. are all part of composition.

14. The “right” color balance is the strongest way of seeing color

• There is no such thing as the “right” color balance in Fine Art.
• This is because color is one of the ways you express your emotional response to the scene.
• For this reason, the “right” color balance for a specific image will differ from one. photographer to the next.

15. The finest compositions are those you never saw until you created them.

• Recreating a composition you saw before is easy.
• Creating a brand new composition, one you have never seen before, is difficult.
• This is because doing so requires transforming the natural chaos into an organized image.
• It involves creating order out of chaos, as Elliott Porter said.

Alain Briot, Vistancia, Arizona, May 2011