What is 'Strong Composition"?

BradS

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Reading through the recently resurrected thread asking about photographic turn-ons and turn-offs, I noticed several responders mention "Strong Composition"...and I realize, I haven't a clue what, specifically, that is. I mean, what does "strong composition" look like? or what the lack of it look like?
 
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Ariston

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It is whatever YOU like. There are rules that can make it easier (rule of thirds, don't put the horizon in the center, balance the elements, etc.), but if you follow none of the rules and YOU like your photograph, then the composition is strong.

If you take a photograph and everyone likes it but you, I guess maybe that is strong composition, too.

Also, look at NB23's photographs for examples of strong composition.
 

Alan Edward Klein

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Interesting question. What comes to mind is a photo that speaks to you and moves you somehow. It could be awe. Tragedy. That kind of thing. Not a snapshot.
 
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BradS

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So, it’s completely subjective?
 

Alex Benjamin

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To put it simply (as this is a subject that could take pages): it's both how things relate to one another within the frame (how they work in relation with each other in the frame) and how each relates to the frame (where they are in the frame).

By 'things" I don't mean objects, or people (the "subject matter"). By "things" mean every aspect of the photographic object, meaning also color, different densities of light and shadows, etc.

To be annoyingly zen about it, I'd say a strong composition is how every single aspect of the photographic object comes together to form a strong composition .
 

pentaxuser

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BradS said:
So, it’s completely subjective?
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In a word Yes, I'd say Is it any different from me saying that photo X is striking, has impact and you saying that you see nothing in it that is either striking or has impact

We are both right and neither of us are right

pentaxuser
 

138S

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When resulting composition has an strong impact: in the aesthetics or in the message. It can happen both after following the well known composition rules or if not following any known rule at all.

IMO, an strong composition makes use of "geometry" to provide a remarkable visual impact or to guide the exploration route of our eyes use in the image.

When me make heavy usage of the well known "Composition rules" (or new ones) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_(visual_arts)), and this makes a powerful impact, then we have an strong composition.

As always we may use the composition rules or not, the job quality does not depend on that, but there is no doubt that many images are enhaced (or modified) after modifying the framing following those rules. We all know the effect of directing lines exactly to the corners...

https://emptyeasel.com/2018/10/08/7-steps-to-a-stronger-composition/


Eye tracking techniques help advertising agencies to explore the impacts in the images, there are two principal tools, one is heat maps:



The other one is recording the trajectory, scan path analysis:


https://measuringu.com/eye-tracking/
http://eyemetricsresearch.com/whatToTest.htm

The sequence in what we explore the different subjects (or parts of them) in the image is very important to tell a history and to tell a message, also it is important the time we spend in each spot.

To practice a photographer may acknowledge the scan path his own eyes explore the images...

Of course an strong composition may cause an impression before even before we start exploring path, but for sure an strong composition influences in the way we explore the image.


This is a very complex matter, and every person may make different interpretation. Still in high budget advertising campaigns a lot of effort is spend to analyze how we interpret the image and what aesthetic impact we get. Of course an strong composition is a powerful tool for them. Also those techniques (scan path analysis) are very interesting for general fotography, being art or commercial.

Let me insist, a photographer that analyzes the scan path in his images (IMO) he has an advantage, and composition has an interaction with that, an strong composition may (or not) force a particular scan path we want, helping narrative and/or message.
 
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Alex Benjamin

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pentaxuser said:
In a word Yes, I'd say Is it any different from me saying that photo X is striking, has impact and you saying that you see nothing in it that is either striking or has impact

We are both right and neither of us are right

pentaxuser
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I'm going to say the exact opposite . I don't think strong composition is subjective at all (and I'm making a difference here between "strong composition" and "strong subject matter"). We have centuries of paintings to tell us that. On can look at a painting by Da Vinci or by Caravaggio or by Delacroix or by Monet and come to a pretty quick understanding of why their composition is strong, and you can look at paintings by second- or third-rate painters of the same periods and tell quite easily why their composition skills aren't as good.

Same with photography. There is a reason why Lange's Migrant Mother is such a fantastic composition : how the kids relate to to mother, where the mother is looking, how her right hand is placed, among other things. This is not subjective. Had she taken the picture from another angle, had the mother looked at the camera instead of looking like she's wondering what the future will be made of, it would have been a much weaker composition, and a much weaker picture, even though the subject matter would have been the same.

Strong composition is not a matter of opinion, just like The Beatles being a better band than The Monkees is not a matter of opinion.
 

Ariston

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BradS said:
So, it’s completely subjective?
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Yes. Yes it is.

How can it not be? I think the Monkees are better than the Beatles. Who can argue with that? Value judgments are by definition subjective.

You may say the Beatles sold more albums than the Monkees, and that is objectively true. But that has nothing to do with "better".
 
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Vaughn

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Strong composition strengthens the artist's intent. A weak one adds nothing. Poor composition can detract from the artist intent.
 

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BradS

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Very interesting. I think I remember Stephen Shore talking about essentially this in one of his lectures....except, I don't remember him every using the word composition. If I remember correctly, he spoke of how 'things' are arranged the space and relationships between them and how they relate to the frame, etc...he used much the same language as you've used here.

...but, can this be learned? or is it something that is just innate to the great artists? (like great musicians hear the music in their head and only write it down so they can get some sleep)?
 
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BradS

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cliveh said:
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Yes...and???

Do you offer this as an example of strong composition or weak composition or something else??? and why, what makes it so?
 

Sirius Glass

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I cannot direct you to a specific book, but go to the library and look for art or art history books to find more about it. There are no hard fast rules, but concepts such as having lines lead ones eyes to the subject such as Cliveh's post 11.
 

Alex Benjamin

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How can it be learned? As anything, experience. And looking, looking, looking. At the world outside - how do things relate to each other, how do colors speak to each other, etc. -, at paintings, at how other photographers compose. On that last note, one great learning tool is not only to study achieved photographs - the end result - but to look at contact sheets. It's always fascinating to see how the photographer, on the same subject matter, tried to find the moment, the angle, etc., when the composition would be the strongest - and to see why he rejected those photographs that he considered weaker. The Magnum Contact Sheets is a great book to have.
 
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BradS

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Sirius Glass said:
I cannot direct you to a specific book, but go to the library and look for art or art history books to find more about it. There are no hard fast rules, but concepts such as having lines lead ones eyes to the subject such as Cliveh's post 11.
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Ah, good! I've been working my way through the required textbook for the two semester Art History class at the local Community College, "Gardner's Art Through the Ages".
 

cliveh

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BradS said:
Yes...and???

Do you offer this as an example of strong composition or weak composition or something else??? and why, what makes it so?
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I offer this as very strong composition taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson, as it is a perfect example of golden section within monochromatic simplistic framing. The fact that is in black & white adds to the power of the composition. Just spend two or three minutes to look at it.
 

Alex Benjamin

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Cartier-Bresson is a fascinating study in the context of analyzing composition because his notion of "the decisive moment" has creating such iconic images and has been so influential. That quest for harmony, however, was something that belonged to him. It's something he looked for, it's how he saw the world, but he didn't think it as a rule that other photographers should obey.

Robert Frank or W. Eugene Smith are also two of the greatest "composers" in the history of black & white photography, and neither of them looked for the "decisive moment" in the same manner than Carter-Bresson did, in the sense that they weren't interested in some abstract "harmony", but in the way a certain "compositional moment" revealed something about the human condition (something that doesn't seem to preoccupy Cartier-Bresson that much).
 

Lachlan Young

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BradS said:
...but, can this be learned? or is it something that is just innate to the great artists? (like great musicians hear the music in their head and only write it down so they can get some sleep)?
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It's not about 'learning' per se, but more about learning to express/ allowing yourself to express what you want/ need to say - and how urgently you need to say that. 'Strong Composition' is the sort of phrase that tends to emanate from the strange world of highly codified, composition-by-numbers anti-art that is produced in quantity from camera clubs. (I'm aware that this is arguably a misuse of 'anti-art' in the sense it's used in aspects of art history, but I can't think of a phrase that adequately describes the antagonism to principles of art that camera clubs promulgate)
 
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eddie

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For me it's how "smoothly" the eye moves through the image. Good composition unites the image as a whole. A "staccato" approach disjoints the elements, leaving the image as disparate elements.
 

pentaxuser

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So if there are rules on strong composition anyone show us a set of those rules that should be followed such that adherence to the rules would mean that we could all look at the rules and judge and agree which pics in the gallery met those rules. The rules of exposure do seem to be set such that there is a general consensus that if you for instance expose a film at 3 times its box speed then shadow detail will be lost. I haven't seen similar rules for composition but if they exist we might all benefit from being shown them

Well course there aren't rules in that sense of the consequences of under exposure which are immutable I hear you say while just refraining from adding the epithet "silly boy" in a slightly withering fashion . However if the rules, should they exist, are not like the laws of gravity for instance formula then aren't we on the slippery slope of it being at best simple and very flexible guidelines which quickly lead to there being no rules at all other than the usual one such that we can probably all agree on such as do not cut off people's heads and avoid telegraph poles growing out of said heads. These are commonsense rather than rules of composition or are they?

pentaxuser
 

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It's a (failed) attempt to assign non-existing powers. Leaving it at "subjective" is plenty complementary. It is only about how polarly different any image can be to viewers. When same image can be seen as "strong" and "weak" depending whom you ask, it has no meaning. Or let me say:

show me a "strong" image and I tell you how "weak" it is
.
 

MattKing

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You can have really interesting and compelling photographs with lousy composition - a fair amount of true photo-journalism is that way. Essentially, the subject matter overpowers the presentation.
And you can have powerful photographs where the composition is the photograph - the relationship between the elements in the photograph is itself wonderful. The subject matter is unimportant, compared to how the subject matter is presented.
And you can use composition to support and work with the subject matter to create a photograph that is compelling in multiple ways.
"Rules" of composition are inductive in nature. They are/were discovered by reference to observed patterns of viewing and appreciating.
If you learn the "rules" of composition, you are learning about what others have historically used to explain why certain things are visually pleasing and evocative. They aren't subjective, but experiential. The weight of the various rules will vary between observer.
"Rules" of composition are also culturally referenced - different rules are more prominent in different cultures (e.g. Japan).
I would say that "Strong" composition is composition where the form and placement of the elements in the image is both visually impactful, and predominant in importance. cliveh's Cartier-Bresson example exhibits "strong" composition because of the impact of the form and placement of its elements and, paradoxically, because of the relatively mundane nature of its subject.
 

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If there is any chance of "objectively" discussing this hugely "subjective" idea of "strong", any examples supporting compositional "strength" cannot be argued with an image taken by a famous taker. It's impossible to separate the two and how actual image and who took it plays into its evaluation.

I would bet more than my house that many would call Michael Kenna's compositions as "strong". I fell into this promotional trap myself buying one of his albums. I see little but "mannerism" in his images, there is no strength by any measure, but there sure is a lot commercial interest in hyperbolic descriptions assigned to them.
 

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BradS said:
Ah, good! I've been working my way through the required textbook for the two semester Art History class at the local Community College, "Gardner's Art Through the Ages".
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I have that book right next to me its the 7th edition.
composition is a tricky thing. .. its everything and its nothing. its what's in "the frame" and how it all works or doesn't work,
its how your eye wanders the photograph and how you want someone's eye to wander the photograph ( or not ) .. its what makes things
pleasing to look at or uncomfortable to stomach.
your book is good. look at paintings and sculptures look at architecture and look at the "architecture" of the paintings and sculptures ...
I always loved looking at Piet Mondrian's theosophical paintings.. they answered a lot of composition questions I had...
 
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