Tip #4 : Sniper attack!

Looking at some pictures people take, you'd think their day job was SWAT sniper. Why else would you put your victim ... err... I mean subject dead center in your viewfinder?

Problem : Placing the subject dead center is rarely visually appealing. It's pretty rare that the surroundings are interesting or at least not distracting all around your subject (say, if you were looking to take an "I've been here" shot) so you generally end up with a whole lot of uninteresting stuff in your picture. In the image on the left you have a light switch, a distracting crooked vertical line on the right side, the picture frame on the left is cut off, the whole picture just looks sloppy (although this could also be because I was in a dire need of a haircut).

Solution : Divide the scene in three sections on the vertical and three on the horizontal and try to place your subjects along one of the lines or at one of the intersections between the horizontal and vertical lines. Pick the line/intersection in such way that the background is the most pleasant/interesting/non-distracting. This is called the "Rule Of Thirds" and is a basic rule of composition. There are certainly situations where this "rule" needs to be broken, but it works more often then it doesn't.


Extra tip : In most cases, a sloppy composition can be fixed with some cropping, in post-production. But why spend more time fixing pictures which can be taken right from the beginning?

Want to learn more about composition? Buy a book! This is a good one :