One of the main rules of photography (as always rules are meant to be broken) is that things (and people) should come in odd numbers. 1,3,5 etc. This is particularly true of objects and items but does apply to people as well. Groups of odd numbers of people always look better than even numbers, the only possible exception here is 2 people as they are so close to each other they become 1 item. Take a look at the following images and see what you think about the odd number rule.

2 people in a photograph breaks the rule of odd numbers but works here because they become 1

3 people here looks better than the next image where there are 4 people

4 people here not as good as with an odd number

One of the most dynamic compositions is to get things into a triangle or a V shape, this gives the eye somewhere to move from and/or to and so gives a pleasing effect. Take a look at the following photographs and notice how much more dynamic and interesting the 1st photogrpah is compared to the second.

portrait photograph with good composition -traiangles

Here it is again with the traiangle drawn in; in case you can’t see the shape.

portrait photograph with trainagle line drawn in

And here is the not so good composition.

photograph showing not so good composition

Just thought I would say a word or 2 about clothing, this is possibly not such an issue with weddings as people tend to go for plain clothes for weddings, but if you are going to have any photography done always try and wear something plain, certainly thin stripes or small checks are a real no no. Take a look at the photograph below which has 4 ladies all in white tops which is fine but the gentleman has a blue stripy top on and at certain sizes of image it looks like the scanning on a TV has gone hay wire (click on the image to get a larger image which demonstrates the point more). If the stripes are bigger this kind of optical illusion tends not to happen. Another thing to think about is colour co-ordination, try to make sure you do not clash with other peoples clothes particularly if you are going to be stood next to them a lot.

photograph that shows what not to wear when being photographed.

Getting back to composition (sorry had a slight diversion in to holiday snaps there), there are several ‘rules’ to composition (all rules can be broken), today I want to discuss straight lines or the lack of them. When composing a picture always try to angle the shot so that you remove any straight lines particularly where people are concerned. That is not to say that you remove ALL straight line e.g. horizons should always be straight and level particularly where water is concerned. Lets use an example: below is an image of 2 people who happen to be roughly the same height, if they had their heads were at different heights or the shot was cropped much more so that only their head and shoulders can be seen it would be more dynamic.

Not good-photograph of 2 people with heads at the same height creating straight lines

Take a look at the next photograph where the 2 people are at different heights and so create a diagonal line between the heads and so looks a little more dynamic.

better-photograph pf 2 people with heads at different heights and so creats diagonal lines

Next time I will look at how this can be improved some more.

I was recently talking to someone who had bought a new compact camera and proudly stated that it had 13Mega pixels. That got me thinking about the marketing hype around cameras, manufactureres are using the numbers game to pursuade us to part with our money. Unfortunately the higher the number of pixels does not necessarily mean a better quality picture, in fact quite the opposite. The biggest factor on picture quality is the size of the sensor, the larger the sensor in general the better quality picture that is produced. Why is this? Well without getting too technical it is all to do with noise (unwanted information) in relationship to the light that we do want and the smaller the pixel the greater this ratio becomes and so the noiser your photographs will appear. (Noise is usually very fine black dots on your photo, usually more noticable in pictures taken at night in man made lighting.) So if the sensor size stays the same and they add more pixels, in general the picture will become poorer in quality. There are other mitgating factors like the quality of the process to produce the sensor that will affect the quality of the photograph as well, but in genreal the higher the camera price and the larger the sensor size the better the quality, so pictures from the extremely small sensors on mobil phone cameras are never going to be as good as those taken from a compact which will never be as good as those taken with a full frame (35mm) sensor and so on. If you want to get more tachnical about all this there is a superb article which discusses all this and much more at the website found here :http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor-size.htm

When taking photographs of people there are several things to consider where composition is concerned. In this photography tip I shall concentrate on the close up.

Portraits usually look better if they are taken as close ups, concentrate on the head and shoulders. If you get in really close it does not matter if you crop off the top of their head, but it is usually better to not crop off the chin (there are always exceptions to the rule). Take a look at the example below, the 1st image is full length of 2 people:

Photograph of 2 people full length

The next image is the same picture but cropped to show just their head and shoulders, it has a much more intimate feel about it, you can see the detail of the faces and feel much closer to the people, more like you are there with them, rather than just looking at the at them.

Photograph of 2 people close up

Here is another example, the 1st image is of a baby full length, it is just a baby, you don’t get any feeling of being with the baby or any detail of the face:

Photograph of baby full length

The next photograph is really close to the baby and you really start to feel like you are there with the baby and get a feel of the mood she is in, it has much more impact. In fact it could even be cropped a bit to remove some of the forehead and the red top.

Photograph of baby close up