Photographic Composition

Today I would like to share more about photographic composition and how it affects our viewers.

Our subject is Victor Pang a Pacific Islander who speaks out about cancer to his fellow islanders. Support groups and helping those who are currently battling cancer or those who might be survivors is one of his many passions. I was asked to photograph Mr. Pang for CURE magazine. I decided a portrait near the water would make sense and put him in an environment that he loves.

He brought his paddle, authentic hat and a flowered shirt and the rest was up to me. Let’s talk about the composition of this photo.

I wanted to show Victor near the water, so we walked right under the pier as close to water without getting wet. The pier acted like a giant screen blocking out the light, but not the ambient light that was nicely diffused due to the clouds.

I decided to place my subject’s head in the upper right area of convergence of the top horizontal and the right vertical thirds of the image. The paddle, I carefully made sure that it didn’t blend into the darkeness of the underside of the pier. So, I had it surrounded by the clouds, that way it was sure to stand out in the frame. The horizon is on a standard 1/3rd sky and 2/3rds land ration. I wanted to emphasize the water and the land, thus, the 2/3rds devoted to that.

Finally, I wanted to show the vanishing point of the pier, I placed that in the convergence of the upper left corner. The lighting was achieved with one off-camera Canon 580EXII at 1/2 power which gave me a ratio of about 1 1/2 stops over the ambient, or so. That’s another post in the future. All in all, I was very pleased that a simple portrait could be so visually effective.

You can see some of my other poses that were part of my creative process, but in the end, the first frame is the one that I like the best.

Simple composition can lead your viewer’s eyes exactly to the places that you desire to highlight. Thanks for looking and enjoy!