Throughout the entire photo guide, mainly all we have been talking about was the technical side of photography, and we barely mentioned about artistic techniques. If all we talked about was equipment, we should of named our site "Photography | Equipment You Will Need". However, why did we name our web site "Photography | The Art of Light" if we never talk about art? In this area, I will talk about the artistic side of photography.

What makes a person a good photographer is how well he composes the scene, not necessarily his/her equipment. Even if you have thousands of dollars worth of equipment, if you do not know how to compose a scene properly, you will never come out with anything good. A good photographer with a simple point-and-shoot may take a better picture than a person who owns a $2,500 zoom and a sophisticated camera, and who does not know how to compose a scene well.

With that said, here are several guidelines for composing a scene:

-Avoid placing your subject directly in the center. The best photographs’ subjects are placed slightly offset of the center of the picture. Try placing it according to the rule of thirds. Otherwise, make your subject fill the entire frame (this can be done by a technique called cropping)

-Carefully consider the lighting in a scene. You should use everything you have learned in Light: the most important element in your scene’s composition. Avoid using a flash to as the primary light source.

-Use a lens most suitable for the situation. As I said back when I was explaining about the types of lenses, you should use the correct lens for what you are taking a picture of (e.g. A typical portrait should be taken with a 100-150mm lens).

Keep it simple- In other words, make sure all elements in your scene serve a purpose. You should crop out anything that interferes with your picture’s composition.

Despite its name, the rule of thirds is not a rule, but rather a guideline. In fact, I do not believe in actual rules in photography (or art, for that matter), except one. You must be creative. But anyway, the rule of thirds is an important factor in positioning objects in a scene, especially your main subject. This is how it works: try imagining dotted lines on your picture, all divided up into thirds. The box in the center is where your subject should not go most of the time. Try placing the subject to the leftmost or rightmost box. Composing a scene this way will allow you to create a far better scene than one created with the subject dead-center.

Way back in the introduction, I told you that just reading this photo guide alone probably will not cut it. I explained to you that you have to experiment to achieve the results that you want. In fact, you must be getting sick of the word experiment. The reason I keep on bugging you is because this is important, not because I want to annoy you! But now back to the point.

If a single roll of film is lasting 2 months, then there is a major problem. You are not experimenting enough. When on a photographic assignment, I may use up a 36-exposure roll in just 1 hour! And half of them turn up to be bad pictures. Then, as I look through the images, I find one or two pictures that are the greatest photographs I have ever taken. Basically what I’m saying is don’t feel shy to experiment. When photographing something, try taking it at different angles, focal lengths, lighting conditions, and stops. You may be burning rolls of film, but it will be worth it.

There it is, composition and experimentation in a nutshell. Up next, we will learn about something that saved many photographers’ lives, or at least their pictures: Meters.