Framing vs. Composition (non-technical stuff)?

[Evan55T]

Hi, i really want to learn more about these 2 concepts i understand they are different right? (correct me if im wrong still learning).

Framing focuses on different angles and viewpoints/perspectives the subject is being shot, and there are some angles at which certain subjects or objects look best at correct to highlight certain points/aspects about photo to make it more appealing for x,y, and z...?

lights

Composition having different elements about the photo work together such as foreground, subject, background, not having things you don't want in your shot like dead space or irrelevant things etc...?

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I don't understand how people say use rule of thirds (esp when you are starting out it annoys me so much), balance, and all that stuff for composition but if the angle/frame of the photo is completely boring or whatever trying to compose the photo doesn't mean anything?

So there is a difference between composition and framing correct, and why do people associate them together is it because they are both talking about the visual aspects of the photo/shot?

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Also can anyone recommend any books/resources for me too that discuss these 2 concepts?

 

[480sparky]

Framing is a component of composition.

 

[Evan55T]

Framing is a component of composition.

Hm... so do you compose like do the rule of 3rd's/balance subjects, background, etc... first before you take a shot or do you just find an angle/viewpoint you like and then try to frame things then compose?

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Also when taking different types of shots take for example portrait shots... you are limited to the different angles/or composition you can do correct? Because the main focus should just be on the person which should fill up the frame?

 

[Derrel]

Look into the science of composition, which is based on the elements and principles of design.

The "rule of thirds" is a modern-era, made-up, sort of a so-called hack, to use modern language, to help beginning shooters make pictures that are not dreadfully awful. The "rule of thirds" is kind of like one of those over-used, cliche phrases, like, "Just keep the car between the ditches!". The stock phrase, "Keep the car between the ditches," does NOT tell a person, "How to drive properly." And so goes the so-called rule-of-thirds.

The elements and principles of design. That is the science that underlies how pictures are composed, and what they are made up of, either paintings, drawings, engravings, or photographs.

Framing is how we decide what is the proper way to orient a camera's field of view.

Do I, "Frame this portrait of a woman seen from very close up as vertical composition? Or do I frame it like an untrained noob with zero art background, in such a way that I lop off most of her hair, cut into her forehead,and chop off her chin as well, and leave two dead, useless, empty spaces on either side of her chopped-up face, by framing with the camera held horizontally?"

 

[Designer]

Hm... so do you compose like do the rule of 3rd's/balance subjects, background, etc... first before you take a shot or do you just find an angle/viewpoint you like and then try to frame things then compose?

Also when taking different types of shots take for example portrait shots... you are limited to the different angles/or composition you can do correct? Because the main focus should just be on the person which should fill up the frame?

After reading some books on composition, you should come to the realization that it all pretty much needs to happen all together. So you see the composition in your mind's eye, and attempt to get that same composition in the frame as you take the photo.

Takes practice, too.

 

[Derrel]

You want a quick fix? I looked at this for about two hours last month at the library. Good book for beginning photographers using digital cameras and software, where the image WILL BE, most likely, manipulated later.

https://www.amazon.com/Photographers-Eye-Composition-Design-Digital/dp/0240809343

 

[480sparky]

Framing is a component of composition.

Hm... so do you compose like do the rule of 3rd's/balance subjects, background, etc... first before you take a shot or do you just find an angle/viewpoint you like and then try to frame things then compose?

---

Also when taking different types of shots take for example portrait shots... you are limited to the different angles/or composition you can do correct? Because the main focus should just be on the person which should fill up the frame?

I really don't 'frame' using the camera. At least in terms of using the cameras boundaries of recording the scene. I make a mental note of roughly where I want the edges of the final image to be, shoot with plenty of 'space' outside my mental frame, My 'framing', I think in the sense you're referring to, is done in post depending on the aspect ratio I want/need.

 

[Gary A.]

Framing is a component of composition.

Hm... so do you compose like do the rule of 3rd's/balance subjects, background, etc... first before you take a shot or do you just find an angle/viewpoint you like and then try to frame things then compose?

---

Also when taking different types of shots take for example portrait shots... you are limited to the different angles/or composition you can do correct? Because the main focus should just be on the person which should fill up the frame?

I really don't 'frame' using the camera. At least in terms of using the cameras boundaries of recording the scene. I make a mental note of roughly where I want the edges of the final image to be, shoot with plenty of 'space' outside my mental frame, My 'framing', I think in the sense you're referring to, is done in post depending on the aspect ratio I want/need.

I frame using the camera. I attempt to see the final image before bringing the camera up to my eye. Then I adjust camera position, focal length, speed, aperture, ISO (if needed) to match my mental image. I attempt to do everything in-camera and minimize processing time. I am trying to attain a level of skill, that if I need to crop in post, then the image is a failure and gets dumped.

When all else fails, follow the rules.

This is how I shoot. We all see and shoot differently. You need to find what works for you.

 

[480sparky]

Framing is a component of composition.

Hm... so do you compose like do the rule of 3rd's/balance subjects, background, etc... first before you take a shot or do you just find an angle/viewpoint you like and then try to frame things then compose?

---

Also when taking different types of shots take for example portrait shots... you are limited to the different angles/or composition you can do correct? Because the main focus should just be on the person which should fill up the frame?

I really don't 'frame' using the camera. At least in terms of using the cameras boundaries of recording the scene. I make a mental note of roughly where I want the edges of the final image to be, shoot with plenty of 'space' outside my mental frame, My 'framing', I think in the sense you're referring to, is done in post depending on the aspect ratio I want/need.

I frame using the camera. I attempt to see the final image before bringing the camera up to my eye. Then I adjust camera position, focal length, speed, aperture, ISO (if needed) to match my mental image. I attempt to do everything in-camera and minimize processing time. I am trying to attain a level of skill, that if I need to crop in post, then the image is a failure and gets dumped.

When all else fails, follow the rules.

This is how I shoot. We all see and shoot differently. You need to find what works for you.

I just prefer to 'shoot wide' and crop in post because of the multitude of aspect ratios, as well as being able to edit the image more towards a customer's specific needs. Since I don't do commission work, my sales are driven using existing work. Cropping in situ could cost me a LOT of money.

 

[Gary A.]

Framing is a component of composition.

Hm... so do you compose like do the rule of 3rd's/balance subjects, background, etc... first before you take a shot or do you just find an angle/viewpoint you like and then try to frame things then compose?

---

Also when taking different types of shots take for example portrait shots... you are limited to the different angles/or composition you can do correct? Because the main focus should just be on the person which should fill up the frame?

I really don't 'frame' using the camera. At least in terms of using the cameras boundaries of recording the scene. I make a mental note of roughly where I want the edges of the final image to be, shoot with plenty of 'space' outside my mental frame, My 'framing', I think in the sense you're referring to, is done in post depending on the aspect ratio I want/need.

I frame using the camera. I attempt to see the final image before bringing the camera up to my eye. Then I adjust camera position, focal length, speed, aperture, ISO (if needed) to match my mental image. I attempt to do everything in-camera and minimize processing time. I am trying to attain a level of skill, that if I need to crop in post, then the image is a failure and gets dumped.

When all else fails, follow the rules.

This is how I shoot. We all see and shoot differently. You need to find what works for you.

I just prefer to 'shoot wide' and crop in post because of the multitude of aspect ratios, as well as being able to edit the image more towards a customer's specific needs. Since I don't do commission work, my sales are driven using existing work. Cropping in situ could cost me a LOT of money.

I dunno ... I understand aspect ratios differ. I use wide borders in order for the final image to accommodate any aspect ratio.

 

[480sparky]

Framing is a component of composition.

Hm... so do you compose like do the rule of 3rd's/balance subjects, background, etc... first before you take a shot or do you just find an angle/viewpoint you like and then try to frame things then compose?

---

Also when taking different types of shots take for example portrait shots... you are limited to the different angles/or composition you can do correct? Because the main focus should just be on the person which should fill up the frame?

I really don't 'frame' using the camera. At least in terms of using the cameras boundaries of recording the scene. I make a mental note of roughly where I want the edges of the final image to be, shoot with plenty of 'space' outside my mental frame, My 'framing', I think in the sense you're referring to, is done in post depending on the aspect ratio I want/need.

I frame using the camera. I attempt to see the final image before bringing the camera up to my eye. Then I adjust camera position, focal length, speed, aperture, ISO (if needed) to match my mental image. I attempt to do everything in-camera and minimize processing time. I am trying to attain a level of skill, that if I need to crop in post, then the image is a failure and gets dumped.

When all else fails, follow the rules.

This is how I shoot. We all see and shoot differently. You need to find what works for you.

I just prefer to 'shoot wide' and crop in post because of the multitude of aspect ratios, as well as being able to edit the image more towards a customer's specific needs. Since I don't do commission work, my sales are driven using existing work. Cropping in situ could cost me a LOT of money.

I dunno ... I understand aspect ratios differ. I use wide borders in order for the final image to accommodate any aspect ratio.

Soooooo..... it sounds like you do the same thing I do then.

 

[KmH]

The rule of thirds was first written about in 1797 by John Thomas Smith, an English painter, and engraver.

There are guidelines for visual art composition, but no rules.

Most of the visual art composition guidelines used in design and art today were developed over 1000 years ago.

The rule of thirds is just one of many guidelines for visual image composition.

There are other guideline similar to the rule of thirds based on the Golden Ratio, and still others based on triangles.
Studies by psychologists have been devised to test the idea that the golden ratio plays a role in human perception of beauty.

Or put another way, a lot of visual art composition guidelines are based on mathematics, mostly the mathematics of ratios.

 

[Gary A.]

Framing is a component of composition.

Hm... so do you compose like do the rule of 3rd's/balance subjects, background, etc... first before you take a shot or do you just find an angle/viewpoint you like and then try to frame things then compose?

---

Also when taking different types of shots take for example portrait shots... you are limited to the different angles/or composition you can do correct? Because the main focus should just be on the person which should fill up the frame?

I really don't 'frame' using the camera. At least in terms of using the cameras boundaries of recording the scene. I make a mental note of roughly where I want the edges of the final image to be, shoot with plenty of 'space' outside my mental frame, My 'framing', I think in the sense you're referring to, is done in post depending on the aspect ratio I want/need.

I frame using the camera. I attempt to see the final image before bringing the camera up to my eye. Then I adjust camera position, focal length, speed, aperture, ISO (if needed) to match my mental image. I attempt to do everything in-camera and minimize processing time. I am trying to attain a level of skill, that if I need to crop in post, then the image is a failure and gets dumped.

When all else fails, follow the rules.

This is how I shoot. We all see and shoot differently. You need to find what works for you.

I just prefer to 'shoot wide' and crop in post because of the multitude of aspect ratios, as well as being able to edit the image more towards a customer's specific needs. Since I don't do commission work, my sales are driven using existing work. Cropping in situ could cost me a LOT of money.

I dunno ... I understand aspect ratios differ. I use wide borders in order for the final image to accommodate any aspect ratio.

Soooooo..... it sounds like you do the same thing I do then.

Quite possible, but I try not to crop in post ... a la Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Film Full Frame Borders

 

[Derrel]

Sorry KmH, do some more real, actual, substantial research on what the hack artist John Thomas Smith had to say about HIS understanding of rural landscape painting, as limited as it was. I get that a quick web search will turn up erroneous information, written by a college kid who still subscribes to compostion-by-numbers and magic math! lol

What John Thomas Smith, an English painter, and engraver, had to say was, "

Analogous to this “Rule of thirds”, (if I may be allowed so to call it) I have presumed to think that, in connecting or in breaking the various lines of a picture, it would likewise be a good rule to do it, in general, by a similar scheme of proportion; for example, in a design of landscape, to determine the sky at about two-thirds ; or else at about one-third, so that the material objects might occupy the other two : Again, two thirds of one element, (as of water) to one third of another element (as of land); and then both together to make but one third of the picture, of which the two other thirds should go for the sky and aerial perspectives."

So: give the sky 1/3 of the picture, or 2/3 of the painting area, and then fill the balance of the frame with "material objects" OMG...hilarious!

Not the same as the modern era hack of dividing a camera's field of view into a grid-pattern, running horizontally and vertically.

You might want to do more actual research before confusing a 1797 hack artist with the MODERN-ERA rule of thirds concept, that of dividing the image into a grid. That comes from a Popular Mechanics magazine article. And which is indeed, a MODERN "hack", put forth for noobs with zero study in the visual arts.

Overlaying "grids" onto already-shot images is a fool's errand. And that is the way he MODERN-ERA "rule of thirds" is typically "taught". Smith was a failed artist who went nowhere, and a man who espoused such simpleton-like ideas as this, " In short, in applying this invention, generally speaking, or to any other case, whether of light, shade, form, or color, I have found the ratio of about two thirds to one third, or of one to two, a much better and more harmonizing proportion, than the precise formal half, the too-far-extending four-fifths—and, in short, than any other proportion whatever."

A simpleton, trying to look at landscape paintings, and to numerically decode how to compose! Hilarious ****! From..the 1790's!

 

[DriedStrawbery]

@Derrel So, you do not agree with rule of 1/3rd or the grid approach being helpful? Seems to be a simple guide to get started with composition.