In this post my goal is to review different examples of existing work and pick out the different composition techniques being used. Doing this will give a better idea of how the techniques can be implemented successfully. Note that I tried to pick out examples that use different composition techniques, in particular ones that are more clear to see, however multiple techniques may appear in multiple examples and I may not mention it.
The first area I chose to visit was photography. Composition is a big part of photography and seems to be what differentiates simple pictures and professional photography. This first example is from the street photo graphist Sofie Steenhoudt.
As with a lot of street photography this piece is also black and white. This is done as it brings a sense of timelessness and nostalgia, reminding people of the past. The composition also utilises the patterns of the building, patterns naturally catch a humans eye and they suggest a sense of harmony.
This is a quite centred composition, as a common trait with buildings, it utilises its symmetry to help create attractiveness and also along with leading lines helps lead the viewers focus to the main subject (being the man) as all lines, as shown below, lead down into the centre.
The next example is another piece of street photography this time by Nina Papiorek.
One of the first techniques I noticed in this was having a frame within a frame, this gives a sense of depth adding layers to the scene, this can be seen clearly as the circular holes in the concrete. The concrete holes can also be an example of the rule of odds. To explain the rule of odds, when an even number of objects are on display your mind automatically pairs them and it becomes harder to focus on a particular object, however when an odd number is used one object may become more dominant and its likely the viewer will spend more time looking between the objects.
The next area of media is drawn art (whether physical or digital). The art I will be visiting is in large similar to photography as it depicts a scene within a frame, but it also allows for some more variety as its not physical in nature so can take on any appearance. The first example is by an artist known as A. Shipwright.
As with most of A. Shipwright’s works, selective colour is used as a centre point. In this particular piece the colour is green. As described in the related post, the character is a necromancer so as with many other necromancers in other media green is used as it opposes the colour red which is associated with life and relates more to disease and decay. The strong difference in colour makes it easy to identify and focus on the main components in green. Another technique used Is negative space. negative space is used quite simply in this scene, the majority of the scene is white meaning there is not much else to focus on other than the main components.
The next artist is Kan Liu or artof666k.
In this piece the character is front and centre, this can be seen as filling the frame. This helps by eliminating distractions in the background and general frame making sure the focal point is the centre of attention. Another technique that enhances this is using wide aperture to isolate the subject, this adds a depth of field to the background making it blurry and less distracting.
Steenhoudt, S.S.(2022) ‘Another new picture’ [Instagram]. 17th August. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChXrGy8rvmn/ (Accessed 11 November 2022)
Papiorek, N.P.(2022) ‘Once upon a time… in Düsseldorf, Germany.’ [Instagram]. 9th October. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cje7imAIjaS/ (Accessed 11 November 2022)
A.Shipwright.(2022) ‘My necromancy brings dead land back to life.
It’s not delicate, but it doesn’t have to be.’ [Instagram]. 30th August. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch4rwHlPGa1/ (Accessed 11 November 2022)
Liu, K.L.(2022) ‘the most powerful girl in 水禅宗’ [Instagram]. 9th September. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch4rwHlPGa1/ (Accessed 11 November 2022)