In this tutorial I will teach you the rest of composition in photography. In part one of my photography composition guide I taught you about angle and the Rule of Thirds. In this tutorial I will each you about using landscape or portrait, cropping and more. So let’s get learning.

Photography Composition - Part II

Should I use Landscape or Portrait?

Though it isn’t always the most commonly used sometimes using portrait might be a better way to take a picture. Using portrait on occasional pictures can help you focus in on your subject and not have as much background.

The above picture was taken in portrait. Notice the good detail and how close I could get and still capture the whole guitar, without getting a whole lot of background.

The above picture was taken in landscape. Notice how much of the background you get. All of it is not needed.

So as you see portrait can sometimes be way better than any photos you can take landscape.

But you may be thinking, why can’t I take my photo in landscape and then just crop it. There is one simple reason to it, and I’m going to use an analogy to show you.

Let’s say you don’t like nuts. You bake nuts into half of your cookie. Well instead of baking nuts into half of your cookie, why not just leave the nuts out all together? That way you get more cookie, and no nuts.

So if you’re a bit dumb when it comes to analogies I’ll sum up what I just said. Why have a smaller and less defined picture when you could have it big and detailed. So if you do it right when you are taking the photo then there will be no need for getting rid of some of it.

Framing

Framing is an important part of photography. Always pay attention to your framing. Check where your focal point in the frame is. Check the detail; can you see enough of it? How close are you and can you get closer?

That picture is a landscape picture of a field of flowers; you can’t see a whole ton of detail in the flowers.

That picture is a portrait picture of a single group of flowers from the above picture. You can see a lot of detail and I think overall it is more appealing. The angle may not be terrific but I believe the detail makes it better than the other picture.

So as you see though some things about photography may be a bit abnormal if you follow these above guidelines they will help you a lot, and you ill take good photos.