Our 16th September HCC meeting was dedicated to learning how to improve composition in our photography. Grace introduced our guest and it is great to see how much she organises for the HCC to render it so successful for its members. An evening presented by John Glynn, professional photographer and teacher. Several of our members have participated to his courses and are very enthusiastic about them. https://www.johnglynnphotography.co.uk/
The evening saw a very good number of our members joining with no chair left unused.
John had decided to explain the principles of composition using images from our members. A great idea, as everyone was even more involved.
John started the evening by talking about some of his strategies:
- Look and think carefully about what it is you want to present, check if all elements in the frame contribute to your idea (if not exclude them) and check the corners of the frame for any intruding and/or distracting elements
- Take three shots, the first one close in to your subject, the second with a bit of space around it and a third one with a considerably wider view. This will help to identify the main elements and to become also aware of elements not belonging into the frame. In any case it helps to slow you down and be more conscientious while taking photos.
- Never crop and think better about the image before you take it. (Not every member agreed to this non-cropping approach)
- Light is the essence of a good image; make sure that the light emphasizes your subject. Darken bright edges which take the viewer out of the frame.
John made it clear from the start, that even though he would explain composition rules using our images, he thought all images were good images and he had no intention to criticize any of them.
He then presented a number of images diving into aspects like rule of the third, placement of elements, negative space, and being close enough to the item of interest; thus, always using one’s feet. Avoid elements which take you out of the frame, which he demonstrated using two images of a bridge of which one could keep the viewers attention while the other one takes you out of the image.
The presentation was accompanied by interested questions from the audience and involved, friendly discussions. He will judge our ‘Season Starter’ in October and the ‘Jubilee’ competition in December; thus, it will be interesting to see how much we can implement of what we learned today. (Rudolf guesses that he will be caught cropping…)
John presented some of his beautiful photobooks and suggested that every photographer should have the aim to do something with their photos. A book will remain in the future when the digital files might have been long lost.
Thanks to Rudolf for these words.
(Featured photo courtesy of Davide.)