Foundations: Leaving Space Around Your Subject

While filling the frame with your subject can lead to a high impact portrait – particularly if the final image will be used at a small scale – using this technique all the time leads to a selection of images that are repetitive. As with many of the rules of composition, when your images are viewed as a set, variety becomes key. Allowing space around your subject also enables you to include background or environmental details. Sometimes you may want …

Foundations: Shoot With The End In Mind

The end intention of your image will – to some extent – determine the best composition to use. For example, if the subject wants to use the photograph as their image on a social media profile, you may need to crop the shot into a square. In addition, taking a full length shot with plenty of space around the subject would result in detail too tiny to make out once the image is a small, online box. Instead, a close …