Composition Education Recommendations?

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Hey all! Does anyone have a recommendation on resources for learning to improve composition - books, tutorials, educators, etc? Doesn’t have to be specific to photography. Could be art of any kind.

I find that in the field, I end up taking multiple different compositions and then in post-processing can’t decide which I like. Same with cropping. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!

Dan

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Hey Daniel. If you are interested in landscape photography, then I would highly recommend this $29 ebook from @Sarah_Marino “11 Composition Lessons for Photographing Natures Small Scenes”

Even though it discusses composition in the context of intimate landscapes, there are a lot of valuable tips that pertain to composition in general. She includes a lot of images where she discusses in depth why certain aspects of composition either work or don’t work, and why.

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+1 to @Ed_McGuirk’s suggestion - Sarah’s eBook is fantastic.

Several years ago Erin Babnik wrote a few articles on composition that I really enjoyed:

  1. Five Compositional Patterns Worth Finding in Nature
  2. Four (More) Compositional Patterns Worth Finding in Nature
  3. Does a Landscape Photograph Need a “Subject”?

I’m sure there’s a plethora of other resources online about composition, however I think the most valuable educational resource for me was attending some in-field workshops with my favorite photographers that have really, really tight composition (e.g. @Alex_Noriega and @TJ_Thorne and @Eric_Bennett). Yes, workshops are expensive and time consuming, but each one I took was a photographic leap forward for me. There’s nothing quite like getting immediate feedback in the field from an expert.

Some general compositional advice from me:

  1. Study photographs and art on your own. Don’t just scroll by, flip through, or glance at them. Study. Pretend you’re in school and be in the mindset of the teacher saying “look at these 10 photographs and write a paper on why their composition is effective.” Force yourself to think about a single image for 5 minutes and write down your thoughts. Tough but rewarding, for me.
  2. As far as picking images and cropping goes, I try to be really really particular about the edges of a frame. Distracting elements, really bright highlights, things running parallel to the frame, etc. can basically ruin an entire image for me. Sometimes they can be cloned, warped, or cropped out, but sometimes the photo just won’t work.
  3. Picking photos to process is particularly tough for me and these days I try to go by feel - the image has to really excite me for me to work on it. If I have the feeling of “yeah that’s probably good enough” or “this one thing about the image bothers me” I don’t use it. Otherwise, I’ll keep ruminating on that one image when I’m looking through my portfolio and it’ll bother me. I want my portfolio to excite me when I see it. Sorry that’s kind of vague, but that’s what I do.
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Thank you both for the recommendations. @Ed_McGuirk , I purchased the black and white video and e-book guide that @Sarah_Marino made and it was incredible. I should have thought to check their offerings. I will definitely get this asap.

@Brent_Clark , great advice and studying photos is something that I need to do more of. I can’t wait to get out there on some workshops. I think point three is excellent - I think as someone who is relatively new to the art, it is hard to “kill your darlings.” But you are spot on. I’ve found myself getting frustrated or wasting time working images that I should probably just leave alone. It’s a good reminder to slow down and let the growth happen.

Really appreciate you both taking the time for the detailed and thoughtful response. This will be a great starting point.

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Daniel, while all this is great advice, it came from @Brent_Clark , not from me, I just recommended Sarah’s ebook. Give Brent the credit, you must have got our names mixed up.

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Haha, indeed. Edited above. Thanks for picking that up Ed.

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I would also pick up @Ian_Plant’s Visual Flow ebook

And Bruce Percy’s Simplifying Composition

He also has a video workshop

https://www.brucepercy.co.uk/video-workshops

We also did a free webinar with Sarah Marino on composition that you can find at the bottom of this page

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Thanks David! These look like outstanding resources. I’m excited to dig into all of it! Appreciate you taking the time to reply with this advice.

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Hey Daniel,

I find Bruce Percy an amazing communicator when it comes to talking about an abstract item such as composition. The e-book and video workshops that David linked are amazing.

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Thanks Nathan! It looks great and I’m excited to check it out. Cheers!