Composition is one of the most important elements of photography, and one that can mean the difference between an interesting and powerful image compared to a lifeless boring image. In this post I will be explaining various techniques that should help you with your travel photography and to take much better pictures.
Here are composition techniques to help you take better travel photographs.
1. Use reflections
Using reflections is an amazing technique for taking more interesting travel photographs. If you use Instagram then you’ll find that images that use reflections will likely get a much better response from your followers. To capture images with reflections you can use water such as lakes and rivers, puddles, or windows and other elements. It’s important to note that hoping to get reflection shots if it’s windy or raining, or if there are boats or other objects moving on the water will be hard as the water will likely be disturbed rather than still.
2. Use leading lines
Leading lines is one of the most powerful composition techniques for taking awesome photos. This is where you use elements in the scene to lead a viewer’s eye to the main subject. This may be a fence, path, roads, architectural elements and so much more. To make it work you may need to crouch down low to the ground when taking photographs, so as to draw more attention to where the eye should start. Or if you are in a high viewpoint then roads may help with this technique.
For this first image I crouched down low to get the composition.
And for the image below I had a higher viewpoint. The eye would start on the bottom left and be drawn towards the person and then the background.
3. Frame your subject
Using elements around you to frame your subject, such as trees, windows, arches and other features can be very effective. As well as adding more elements to your image it’ll draw your viewers into the final subject. It can also be a good way to remove skies when they aren’t that interesting such as seen below.
4. Add depth and layers
Another great composition technique for taking better travel photographs is to add depth and layers. This means that your scene may have a foreground, such as rocks, a midpoint which might be a person or boat, house etc, and then a background, which may be mountains, a city etc.
The below image has flowers in the foreground, the town in the middle and mountains in the background.
5. Get low
Getting low to the ground is a great way to capture nice images. It is especially good when you are taking pictures of streets that have nice cobbled pavements. Or when you are taking pictures of landscapes consider using grass, flowers and other natural elements. When using this on landscapes sometimes using a wider aperture and blurring your foreground works well.
6. Get high
Getting high will often help to get good photos as you will be able to capture perspectives that were otherwise difficult to achieve. This might be from up towers such as below.
7. Rule of thirds
One of the biggest and most famous rules for composition in photography is to use the “Rule of Thirds”. This is where you divide your scene into 9 squares and then would use the intersections where they cross to place the most interesting element. Generally, it means you wouldn’t have something or someone in the centre of the photo, but rather to the edge off-centre.
8. Zoom and compressing
Using a zoom lens such as 100mm+ and using it to compress a scene can work well. Such as a picture with a person and a mountain, but where the mountain is far away, by using a zoom lens this would make the mountain and person seem so much closer together. I don’t have a great example of this, but you can see some examples in this post: How Lens Focal Lengths Will Affect Background Compression by lensrentals.com.
Combining composition techniques.
As well as using just one composition technique, you can combine multiple techniques. Such as below where in the first image I am using reflections and foliage to frame the image.
And in this image I am using leading lines on the bridge and also framing with the castle in the top right corner.
Summary
The composition of your photographs can make a huge difference in how good the final image is. By being creative and using some of the techniques mentioned in this article you should find your images are much more powerful, interesting and nicer to look at. Head over to some of our other photography articles for more tips.
