How do you practise spotting better compositions?

snerkler said:
I did, and I did take note. However maybe I struggle because of my aphantasia, i.e. I can’t make mental images :thinking:
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Does being able to see the picture on the rear screen not help? I admit to knowing nothing about aphantasia.

I use my mobile phone with an app I can't remember the name of, to explore multiple viewpoints and compositions at different focal lengths before putting up my tripod and selecting which lens to put on.
 
juggler said:
Yes! But only if you take the time to actually study your mistakes & thing about what works and what doesn't. Blindly repeating mistakes won't help.

One of the things I got from learning physical skills (acrobatics, juggling) to a high level as an adult; I learned how to learn. Kids do it intuitively and have more time; most adults need to put concentrated effort in.

Similarly, I don't see a downside from learning from others who've been down the path already. Reading books can't do any harm and may provide invaluable shortcuts.
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Blindly repeating the "same" mistakes certainly won't help. They say that is the difference between rats and human beings. In lab experiments involving electric shocks, rats learn far more quickly than human beings to avoid repeating the actions that give them electric shocks.

I agree with your other points.
 
Ed Sutton said:
Contact sheets are also informative into a photographer's way of thinking. Although not something that exists to any great extent these days - but why I don't delete all my 'near misses'.
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I used to print out the equivalent of contact sheets from all my digital files and store them in a binder until it became too costly.

But coincidentally, last week I started to look at how I could set up QImage to start doing this again. There is something rather special about scanning contact sheets.
 
I’m absolutely convinced that whilst some people definitely have a better ‘eye’ for composition than others (I’m not bad but my wife is better), it’s certainly possible to learn.

Unfortunately some people prickle whenever ’rules’ are mentioned, but the truth of the matter is that studying any imagery will lead you to see what makes a successful image ‘tick’.

I’m one of those ‘left brain’ photographers, which means I’ll never create a masterpiece, no chance of competition winning, jaw dropping, or awesome images from me.

However, I can ‘see’ a photo, I can take a decent photo consistently with little apparent effort. But I do understand light, colour and the geometric rules that create pleasing compositions. So I’m not saying I’m just ‘photographing by numbers’ but that I’m hard wired now to know how my position, focal length, aperture etc affect an image.
 
myotis said:
Does being able to see the picture on the rear screen not help? I admit to knowing nothing about aphantasia.
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Aphantasia is the inability to create mental images, i.e. you don't have a mind's eye. I can obviously see images that are there, but for example if you asked me to close my eyes and make a mental image of the Eifel Tower, or a Tiger, or a member of my family etc I can't.

I wonder if that's why I can't visualise an image before taking the photo so it's more of a case of take the photo, see what it's like. Of course it's not quite shooting blind, but I can't visualise the image I want and then say "ok I need to take the shot from here, framing it in this way". It's more of a case of something like, "I know shooting it from a lower angle sometimes gives a better perspective so I'll try it and see what it's like".
Phil V said:
I’m absolutely convinced that whilst some people definitely have a better ‘eye’ for composition than others (I’m not bad but my wife is better), it’s certainly possible to learn.

Unfortunately some people prickle whenever ’rules’ are mentioned, but the truth of the matter is that studying any imagery will lead you to see what makes a successful image ‘tick’.

I’m one of those ‘left brain’ photographers, which means I’ll never create a masterpiece, no chance of competition winning, jaw dropping, or awesome images from me.

However, I can ‘see’ a photo, I can take a decent photo consistently with little apparent effort. But I do understand light, colour and the geometric rules that create pleasing compositions. So I’m not saying I’m just ‘photographing by numbers’ but that I’m hard wired now to know how my position, focal length, aperture etc affect an image.
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I've no idea which sided brain I am but this bit in bold is how I approach photography.
 
snerkler said:
Aphantasia is the inability to create mental images, i.e. you don't have a mind's eye. I can obviously see images that are there, but for example if you asked me to close my eyes and make a mental image of the Eifel Tower, or a Tiger, or a member of my family etc I can't.

I wonder if that's why I can't visualise an image before taking the photo so it's more of a case of take the photo, see what it's like. Of course it's not quite shooting blind, but I can't visualise the image I want and then say "ok I need to take the shot from here, framing it in this way". It's more of a case of something like, "I know shooting it from a lower angle sometimes gives a better perspective so I'll try it and see what it's like".
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I can understand the mental image bit and indeed since posting looked it up, but I think you possibly overestimate how much mental visualisation the rest of us can do.

In the film days, we used 5x4 Polaroid backs to generate instant prints to help refine exposure, lighting, and composition.

I actively need to explore different viewpoints and compositions. I don't actually take pictures, but I will move my mobile phone or camera into different positions, and then while looking at the screen, study it the same way as I would study it if I had a print. The only 'mind's eye' part of this process is visualising the picture on the phone/camera screen, as a print on my wall.

There is a reason why photographers refer to "working the scene" because you need to physically try out different angles and viewpoints to find out which one's work the best. In the old days you would actually take pictures, so that the client could make the final decision on which view/composition worked best.

Today, we have a choice: we can see what is happening with playback and decide which views/compositions we like best, or we can actually take the pictures and look at them back home.

I'm not advocating a spray and pray approach, as I still think every picture you take should be made with intent and thoughtfulness, but from a learning point of view, actually exposing your most likely keepers to review on the computer (or even better, as prints) is useful.

You may already know all this/thought about it, but I'm just trying to come up with some ideas.


snerkler said:
I've no idea which sided brain I am but this bit in bold is how I approach photography.
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myotis said:
I can understand the mental image bit and indeed since posting looked it up, but I think you possibly overestimate how much mental visualisation the rest of us can do.

In the film days, we used 5x4 Polaroid backs to generate instant prints to help refine exposure, lighting, and composition.

I actively need to explore different viewpoints and compositions. I don't actually take pictures, but I will move my mobile phone or camera into different positions, and then while looking at the screen, study it the same way as I would study it if I had a print. The only 'mind's eye' part of this process is visualising the picture on the phone/camera screen, as a print on my wall.

There is a reason why photographers refer to "working the scene" because you need to physically try out different angles and viewpoints to find out which one's work the best. In the old days you would actually take pictures, so that the client could make the final decision on which view/composition worked best.

Today, we have a choice: we can see what is happening with playback and decide which views/compositions we like best, or we can actually take the pictures and look at them back home.

I'm not advocating a spray and pray approach, as I still think every picture you take should be made with intent and thoughtfulness, but from a learning point of view, actually exposing your most likely keepers to review on the computer (or even better, as prints) is useful.

You may already know all this/thought about it, but I'm just trying to come up with some ideas.
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Interesting, thanks. I did assume that people have a vision in mind and then take the shot accordingly.
 
I don’t have Aphantasia but whether my mental images are better or worse than other people, who knows. If you have aphantasia does it does mean that you cannot form images in your dreams.

I don’t have the eye when it comes to composition and do not see an image in my mind before taking a photo. I will try to find what I consider the best view etc but I am guilty at times of just taking a snap. I’m not convinced that you can learn to have the eye. I have improved over the years but I don’t rate myself as anything other than average.
 
I can imagine things from any perspective, I definitely don't have aphantasia; I can even imagine myself looking at me through the eyes of someone I'm talking to. However, while I can imagine all sorts of things, the translation from mind's-eye to finished product is a much more difficult thing to do. I can imagine something I would like to draw, I can visualise it on the paper in front of me, I know what it is going to look like—and then I start drawing: Oh dear! There is a huge gap between what I can imagine and what I can actually produce. Drawing is the most difficult for me, but turning that good view of something I see into a decent photograph is almost as hard, so I'm not sure how much imagination has to do with a 'good photographic eye', it certainly doesn't help me very much. Most of my 'good' photographs come about by having a vague idea of what I want then just trying it out until something decent appears; it is not often that the results match how I imagined them.

On a side note, while the received wisdom is that 50mm is the 'standard' view of the eye, I swear I see in 35mm or even wider. I do know that the 50mm guide is only the perspective, not the actual angle of view.
 
I'm pretty bad at mental images, so I took an aphantasia test (https://aphantasia.com/vviq), and it turns out I'm just about at the threshold.

Personally, I find it helpful to study composition; Michael Freeman's The Photographer's Eye, I remember, is pretty helpful.

When it's not feasible to get test photos to try out compositions, I have used tools to help, e.g. for studio mock-ups or google earth for landscapes.
 
TimHughes said:
I'm pretty bad at mental images, so I took an aphantasia test (https://aphantasia.com/vviq), and it turns out I'm just about at the threshold.

Personally, I find it helpful to study composition; Michael Freeman's The Photographer's Eye, I remember, is pretty helpful.

When it's not feasible to get test photos to try out compositions, I have used tools to help, e.g. for studio mock-ups or google earth for landscapes.
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It is so weird, as an exception to what I said in my last post, I really can't imagine what it's like to not be able to imagine. My wife doesn't claim to imagine things either and when I told her once that I 'see' the months of the year in a certain pattern, or the days of the week, or numbers from 1 to 100 in a set climbing pattern in different colours, she couldn't understand what I was going on about. I thought everyone did that, seems not.
 
benc98 said:
I'm recommending this to almost everyone I speak to, so I'm like a broken record, but it's the first time i've mentioned it on here ;) Magnum have just released a free 'getting started in photography course' you need to sign up on the website and there's about 10 x 10ish minute videos plus several workbooks. The videos I've watched so far are great, and cover off some the themes we've mentioned in this thread so far..
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Got it . Ben, Thank you very much.
 
I might be the only one that thinks this way but photography for me isn't much about the final image.
I just enjoy the process of taking the photo, but I think it's because it slows me down when out for a walk.
I couldn't care less if anyone else likes my photos and very often I deleted huge amounts of them and only keep a small selection of them.
 
robj20 said:
I might be the only one that thinks this way but photography for me isn't much about the final image.
I just enjoy the process of taking the photo, but I think it's because it slows me down when out for a walk.
I couldn't care less if anyone else likes my photos and very often I deleted huge amounts of them and only keep a small selection of them.
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It isn't only you.

It's not just about slowing me down; it also forces me to look more closely and feel a deeper connection to my surroundings/subject than just going for a walk. It also allows me to "capture" the moment and take it home. I also enjoy the experience of taking photographs, and it's revealing how much more enjoyable a day using a tripod is, compared to a day of handheld photography.

But "The Photograph" is still part of this experience, as I enjoy trying to turn what I saw and felt into a tangible object (a print).

I spend hours going through old photographs and re-processing them, but I rarely share any. I also rarely delete anything, as good or bad, all of them were part of the experience.

The sharing thing might change in the future: I get a lot of pleasure from looking at photographs by other people, and part of me feels I should be sharing.
 
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