Simple in design: the art of reduction

My good friend and client Stacey Williams made this shot on our Eigg workshop last week. I think it's highly atmospheric, effectively simple in composition and tonally very finely balanced. It tells me all I need to know without trying to spell it out either: there are no loud colours or over the top contrasts here, just an inner confidence to show you the beauty of one of Scotland's most photogenic beaches.

Bay of Laig, Isle of Eigg, Scotland.
Image © Stacey Williams 2016, post-edit Bruce Percy

And yet, to pull of a very simple composition like this is not easy for many of us. We struggle with the reduction that's required to distill a scene into one simple message.

I have a theory why this is.

For a long while, I've realised that when most of us start off making pictures, we tend to over complicate them. The final image often has a lot going on and within this complexity is the added dimension of tonal / colour conflicts. Photography is one of the few past-times where we start complex and spend a life-time aiming to make our photographs more effective by simplifying what we put into the frame (or perhaps more importantly, what we choose to leave out).

The reason why we start with overly-complex pictures is because we haven't learned to truly 'see'. Photography is a life-long discipline on being able to really see what is before us and translate that into an effective photograph and if we aren't really aware of tonal conflicts, or distracting objects in the frame, we will tend to leave them in. This is why we can often find our final image doesn't look the way we thought it would. We tend to 'see' differently at the time of capture than the way we 'see' when we look at an image on our computer screen later on.

I've been asking myself for a long while: why this is so? And the only thing I can come up with, is that we tend to look at scenery differently than we do when we look at images. The art behind many successful images is to be able to see the photograph within the scenery while we are on location. Many of us don't do this because we are overwhelmed by the elements of being there, and we still can't abstract a 3D location down into a 2D image.

But composition isn't just about where to place objects within the frame, and choosing what to leave outside of the frame. It is also about understanding the relationships between colours and tones within the scene. In fact, both are interrelated. 

Again, if you aren't able to truly 'see' the relationship between colours and tones within the frame, then the final image may be fraught with overcomplexity. 'I never saw that red telephone box in the corner of the frame', or 'the stone in the foreground is really dark and I can't recover it in post, I wish I'd noticed how dark it was at the time of capture'. This is a typical response because at the time of capture we were too busy thinking about stones rather than the tone or dynamic range of them and whether they would render enough detail in the final picture.

Visual awareness of what is really in front of us, is really at the heart of all of our photographic efforts. If we can't see the tonal distractions or see the conflicting colours at the time of capture, then it means a lot of massaging and coaxing in the edit phase, which isn't a great idea. In sound recording the idea of 'fixing it in the final mix' was always a bad approach and it's better to be aware of the problem at the time of capture and do something about it. If the colours are conflicting, then look for an alternative composition, if the stone is too black to render and will come out as a dark blob in your photo, then maybe go find a rock that is lighter in tone and will render much more easily.

Back to Stacey's picture. She chose a very empty part of the beach. She also chose some very simple foreground sand patterns that she knew were strong enough tonally, to attract interest. She also gave the background island a lot of space. The edit was very simple: we added a lot of contrast to the island to make it the dominant object in the frame, but we did it while doing almost nothing else to the picture because the picture was already working.

If you are struggling with composition, my advice would be to seek out simple empty places and work with one or two subjects within the frame. Add a rock into the picture and experiment with placing it at different areas. Also try rocks of different tonal responses. How would a jet-black rock look in this scene? Will it stand out from the background sand tones? How about a rock that is similar in tone to the beach? Will it stand out just as effectively?

The problem is, that what our eye thinks is pleasing, is often overly complex for our imagery. Good composition is not simply just the act of reducing down the subjects within the frame, but also of understanding which ones will work best tonally as well. Our eye loves more complex objects around us but they don't work when they are all crammed into one picture.

Good landscape composition is not something we master in a matter of weeks or months. It is a life-long journey in building up one's own visual awareness, of noticing what will work, and just as importantly what won't. If you're in it for the long haul, and you have a curious mind, then that's a very good start indeed.

Small adjustments go a long way

For me, improving my photography is really all about improving my visual awareness. 

The original image unaltered.

So in today's post, I thought it would be good to try and discuss how the tiny details can often make a huge improvement to the overall composition. The way I'm going to do this, is by cloning a tiny part of the above image out. Now before I continue, I wish to make it very clear that this post is not about 'here's how to clean up your images using cloning'. Instead, the point I wish to make is that by 'noticing small distractions at the time of capture you can strengthen your compositions'. The most effective way to illustrate how the above image may have been improved is by using cloning. But it's not a tool I would encourage you to use, except for maybe seeing where things could have been more tidy.

A side note: I would suggest that if you are using cloning to clean up your images a lot, then it might be an idea to ask yourself why you aren't seeing the problems in the first place. Failures are really an opportunity to see areas of our photography that require further improvement. If your visual awareness isn't good, then it will show in the tiny distractions you will see in your final images and if you spend time fixing the issue at source, you'll find you won't have to continually cover up the cracks later on. This is feel is at the core of our photography skill - being able to notice distractions (even small ones) at the point of capture, because they can help us strengthen our compositions by a large margin.

With this in mind, I'm going to show how much stronger the image would have been if certain distractions had not been present. I'm going to do this by cloning an area of the scene out. I use this technique in my workshops as a way to help improve participants visualisation technique - so they can understand that if these small distractions in the frame hadn't been present - the image may have been much stronger. Again, I'm not saying 'here's how to clean up your images using cloning'. Instead, I'm really saying 'let's look at how the image may have been stronger if we'd taken care of some of the distractions'.

Below is the altered image. I've chosen not to tell you what I've changed, because I think it would be really useful for you to look and try to find it. Suffice to say that if you do notice it, ask yourself why I maybe chose to remove that particular area and also ask yourself 'which photo feels the calmest?'. My belief is that when something is wrong or jarring in a photograph, we tend to feel it. And feeling things in your photography is key. Your gut should lead you in the right direction not only with how you choose to balance a composition whilst out in the field, but also in your choice of edits. Photography is an emotional art.

In this version, I've removed something from the image to 'simplify' the composition and hopefully make it stronger.

Personally I feel this edit is simpler, more elegant and I think the message is clearer. But you may be asking 'that's all fine Bruce, but how could I have removed the part of the scene while I was there, rather than use a cloning tool later on?'. My answer would be that you have to weigh up the errors you see at the time of capture and whether you can do anything to remove them whilst there. Perhaps if I'd repositioned the camera, the distraction may have been hidden by other branches? I do remember thinking there was no way around it - whatever I did - the distraction was still there. So I feel a sense of pragmatism was employed: I asked myself - can I live with it? Or does it kill the image?. In the case of this photograph, I felt I could still live with the distraction and you'll even see that if you go into the respective image gallery on this very website, the unaltered version is there. Because I felt that there was more working in this image than not.

So in general, here is my thought processes about distractions:

1) Can I reposition to remove it? And will it upset the balance of the composition if I do?

2) If I can't reposition without upsetting the balance of the composition, can I leave it in without it killing the image?

3) If the distraction is going to kill the image, then I would prefer to walk away and find something else to work with. Otherwise, I'm happy to leave it in.

4) Don't over-edit your work. It's fine to leave tiny errors in the picture if you feel the entire image still works. You can over-do cleaning things up so it's always a balancing game. Too much editing will leave the image looking very contrived. Too little and the image isn't fully realised.

So how does anyone go about improving their visual awareness? 

One way I would suggest, is to look at your work on your computer and ask what might have been improved if it wasn't present in the photograph. You can even go as far as cloning distractions out to see if the image would have been improved - but just to see if any improvement would have been made only - I'm not advocating you start to clone things out all over the place - that's not the point of the exercise - you're just doing it to exercise your visual muscle.

The simple act of imagining how an image may have been with something removed is a great visual technique to exercise regularly. If you do this while editing your work, it will become second nature while out in the field.

Visual awareness is all about asking yourself questions - by having a sense of inquisitiveness - at all times about what you're doing.  Rather than accepting a photograph doesn't work and discarding it, you can learn a lot about what went wrong by looking at the errors and asking yourself 'why doesn't this work?, what would have happened if I'd managed to get rid of the error?'.

I think that good imagery comes from going that extra 5%. if you can improve a good image by that 5%, it can be transformed into a very fine image indeed. It's up to you to notice and work with distractions whilst you are out in the field and that will only happen once you start to ask yourself questions all the time.

Making Things more difficult than need be?

I remember Daniel Lanois, the Canadian record producer and artist was once asked 'how do you record a good guitar sound'? to which he replied, 'first find a guitar that sounds good'.

As I've progressed with my own compositions, I've noticed that I tend to be very selective about the places I shoot. I don't choose them because of how famous they are, but instead, I choose them because of how simple they are, and how little work they require make an effective composition.

So in today's post, I thought I would show you an example of that.

Myself in the landscape, Hokkaido, December 2015

Last December I spent a week on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The above image is included in this post to illustrate that the location I shot, was pretty simple to start with. This is my 'selectivity' at play - I choose certain locations because I know there will be little resistance or errors in the landscape that I will have to wrestle with later on. Like Daniel Lanois' statement about finding a good guitar sound to record, I too believe that finding a location where there is little in the way to correct is much better, than trying to make a difficult location work better once I'm behind my computer editing.

Below is the final image I made of this location:

Despite the simplicity of the location, I still felt there were many many options available to me at the time of capture.

Where one might feel that all I had to work with was a group of trees and a snowy hill, I felt I had to be very careful with the placement of all the objects in the frame. Despite this location being quite easy to make a decent image of, I think the real skill in photography is to try to improve upon 'decent' and look for that extra special something that will hopefully transform my images from 'decent' to 'great'.

For instance, I was aware of the background hedges that I had to try and reduce in the composition. I felt that including the hedgerow at the back of the image (that is clearly seen in the first image in this post) would have been too distracting to the main subject (the trees in the foreground). 

I also had to make sure that the foreground tree's branches didn't collide with the hillside (as subtle as the hillside is - If the branches had touched it - I think the image would have been reduced back down to 'decen't rather than something hopefully better than that). You can see in the first image to this post that my tripod is lying completely flat on the ground - that's because I realised I had to get the camera down low to avoid the branches touching the edge of the hillside.

My definition of a great location, is somewhere that I don't have to wrestle with the subject matter too much to make things work. I've been to many beautiful places that don't work as a photograph and I've learned that 'great scenery does not equal great photography'. In many beautiful places I may find distractions that I can't avoid. For example, If I had found that no matter where I placed my tripod, the branches always touched the edge of the hill side, I would have made a decision at the point of capture as to whether this would kill the image or not.

So ultimately, what I'm really saying is that with a location where everything is simple, you shouldn't have to work so hard to make it 'click'.

Keeping things simple is the best advice I've ever had. It applies to how I make all my decisions in life, and it should also be applied to your choice of location that you are hoping to photograph.

Of course, the real skill is to see distractions in the landscape and to know whether they can be lived with or have to be removed. That only comes with time and us working on our own awareness skills.

Landscape photography I feel, is often the art of subtraction. Of being able to isolate one tiny part of the landscape and make a strong photograph from it. But this can be achieved much more easily, if we work with very simple locations to begin with, and not the other way round, as is often the case for many of us.

Do you filter down (reduce), or build up (introduce) objects into your compositions?

I'm always intrigued by the journey from the moment I step out with my camera and come up with the final image. It's a filtering down process for many, but for me it's the opposite way around. Let me explain.

Many workshop participants tell me that when they are confronted with some new location, they find it hard to filter it down to one or two main subjects. I remember one participant telling me that they 'start with everything and have to reduce it down to one or two things over a matter of an hour or so'. Certainly, I'm aware that for some - being confronted with some new scenery can make things very hard to distill into a coherent composition. Everything is vying for your attention and it can be hard to give some elements priority over others.

In the main image to this post today, I show you the final image from a shoot in Hokkaido last December. For me, I tend to be drawn to a subject instantly. It's the opposite of the 'filtering down' approach that some of my participants describe. For me, what tends to happen is I see one thing in the distance and I'm so attracted to it, that everything else around it disappears. Let's zoom out from the image above and have a look at the surrounding landscape near it in the image below:

This is exactly what I saw from the side window of my guide's car and I felt compelled enough to ask him to stop so I could go and make a photo of the tree. In fact - if you look closer - you'll see i'm in the shot - making my way across a river bed that was covered in snow, to get to the tree. 

Can you spot the tree I photographed? 

I like to think that if something is worth photographing - is strong enough as a compositional subject -  it will tend to catch my eye. Like window shopping, I often find something jumps out at me. I think this is a combination of visual awareness and visualisation at play. The awareness to spot something and the visualisation to imagine how it could be with other items removed or reduced in the composition.

I often find I start with one object, and introduce others. In the instance of the main image in this blog, I did exactly that - despite all the clutter and confusion of other trees at the roadside, I could 'see' the lone tree sitting on its own, and I knew there was potential. I also understood that I would have very little else in the frame to draw attention away from it once I got closer. I saw all this from the passenger seat of my guide's car and I believe I utilised my visualisation skills in order to 'see' it.

Once I was closer to the tree, I started to think about the surrounding landscape and which elements, if any, I could introduce into the scene. I've introduced the sun into the frame, as this was more a fortuitous event rather than something I'd noticed in advance. I made several shots - some without the sun and some with, because I can never tell at the time whether I'm overcomplicating something, so I like to make insurance shots for later on. I'm convinced I can only do good editing while at home behind my computer, not while on location. But the key point I'm trying to make is that I started with the tree and slowly started to introduce the surrounding landscape into the scene.  

So which way do you tend to visualise your compositions? Are you a 'start with everything and filter it down to a few objects', or do you start with one thing that grabs your interest, and slowly introduce other objects into the frame?

Density Ratio? - New Hokkaido Images

I've just completed work on a new set of images, shot over a six day duration on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

I have wanted to come here ever since I got to know the beautiful mono work of Michael Kenna. He has been photographing this island for over a decade and his images are really a lesson in simplification.

Over the past few months, I've become aware that I seem to be very selective with regards to how 'dense' the scenes are that I choose to shoot. I think when you're peering through a viewfinder at a white canvas with only one tiny little tree, you are forced to think long and hard about what it is that you're trying to do. How minimalist can one go?

I know that many consider my style 'minimalist' but I've come to realise that I do look for a certain ratio or degree of emptiness in my compositions. 

I am wondering if each of us has a 'goldilocks' ratio for our own compositions? For example, perhaps if you look at your own work, you can see there is a trend to shoot very busy scenes over less busy ones? My feeling is that each of us has a gut instinct to go for a certain amount of objects in the frame. If we find a scene that is more empty than we are used to, we feel either unsure or insecure as to whether it 'feels right', and the same too if the scene is more complex than we normally shoot. If this is the case, I think it simply may be down to a matter of taste, something each of us chooses based on our own aesthetic sensibilities.

So with this thought in mind, I am going to actively give myself more permission to vary the complexity of my compositions in future.

I'd like to think this is perhaps a signal, something that is telling me that what I want to do with my photography is changing, or maybe it's just a recognition that I do tend to gravitate towards the very simple most of the time, and there are other kinds of compositions out there that are equally as valid, but I'm missing out on, because my own aesthetic taste keeps forcing me to work within a small range of 'acceptable compositions' Time will tell.

The new Hokkaido portfolio is up under my 'new work section of this website.

Sometimes it's about the sky, or ground, but seldom both

Disclaimer: Please note, that I write these articles to stimulate some thought. I will sometimes generalise a point or simplify an argument  in an attempt to convey a message. Ultimately,  it is just my point of view and of course is not the definitive word on the matter (as much as I'd love to think so!) ;-)

As much as I would love to fit both sky and ground into my compositions, I only have so much area within my frame to work with. So I have to figure out what is central to the story I'm telling in the image I'm composing. If I add a lot of sky in, then it should either compliment the foreground in some way (if both sky and ground have a relationship - by mirroring shapes or mirroring textures / patterns), or it should dominate the scene.

Picture 1
Despite many thinking this image is about the desert and the mountains, it's really about the sky. So much so, that the sky covers 3/4 the area of the frame, while the ground only covers 1/4 the area. My eye moves mostly around the sky with occasional visits to the two mountains - often in a triangular motion around the frame.

For me, it has to be either / or. You either have a lot of foreground and little sky in the frame, or you have a lot of sky and little ground in the frame. 

We have to figure out what is it that we're trying to say, when we choose the proportions of sky and ground. Is the photo really about the desert and mountains? Or is the image really about the sky, and the mountains are in the frame to give some kind of context?

Settling for something in the middle often results in a confused message. The end result is that the viewer is pulled between both sky and ground and a competition race between sky and ground ensues for the viewers attention (see Picture 2).

But it's hard to choose the sky over the ground as a dominant subject. We tend to give foreground or ground subjects more prominence than they deserve because they are usually what draws us to a location in the first place. In the first image above (see Picture 1), I had that very circumstance. I was first drawn to this place by the strange rocks and mountains to be found there. We can be so wrapped up in what grabbed our attention, that we may fail to see other motifs or interesting patterns elsewhere (such as in the sky). Picture 1 is all the cloud shapes and the light scattering upon them. It is a 'sky photo' with some contextual mountains in the foreground. Not the other way around. 

I've re-cropped the image so we can look at it from another point of view. In Picture 2, it would have been so easy for me to compose the shot in a more traditional format - with the sky only taking up 2/3rd's of the frame and the ground taking up 1/3rd. The net effect is that the horizon is more central and my eye is being pulled between two competing subjects: sky & ground. 

Picture 2
In my original shot, the ground covered 1/4 area of the picture. In this crop where I've reduced the sky, the ground has now 'gained' and covers 1/3 the area of the picture. The result is that the sky has less dominance while the ground has gained in dominance and I find my eye is being pulled between sky and ground in a competition between the two for my attention.

My advice would be to do the following:

1. Set up your shot the way you want it and make an image for comparison.
2. Adjust the camera so that you get a lot more ground in the frame than sky, and make an image.
3. Adjust the camera so that you get a lot more sky than ground in the frame, and make an image.
4. Compare.

I guess I try to avoid central horizons where I can, because mostly they just make a composition feel less focussed. But there are times when going central does work. If the sky and the ground have a tight relationship (such as similar tones, or textures, or perhaps a pattern in the landscape that is also encountered in the sky). I also find I will go central when I feel that sky and ground have little to add to a photo - the main point of attention is to be found in the middle of the frame, By doing this, I can use the sky and ground equally to give a lot of space around a subject, as in Picture 3:

Picture 3.
The horizon is just slightly above centre. I can get away with this composition due to the requirement to have a lot of space around the island. Note however, that I still didn't go central, because that would introduce the feeling of the island sinking (see Fish Tank article from a few days ago).

Ultimately, often trying to have both sky and ground with equal attention leads to competition between the two, unless they are contextual (such as in Picture 3 above - where they just contribute a sense of space to the composition). I prefer to make things as clear as I can - either the image is about the ground (and therefore there is a whole lot more ground in the frame than sky) or it's about the sky (and therefore there is a whole lot more sky in the frame than ground).

Most often, you can't have both without it seriously compromising the strength of your composition.

Suffering from Fish Tank Effect?

Disclaimer: Please note, that I write these articles to stimulate some thought. I will sometimes generalise a point or simplify an argument  in an attempt to convey a message. Ultimately,  it is just my point of view and of course is not the definitive word on the matter (as much as I'd love to think so!) ;-)

Over the years I've been running workshops, I've noticed that many photographers tend to put a lot of sky in their photos, pushing fore & mid-ground interesting subjects towards the bottom of the frame (see Picture 1).

If I were to look at Picture 1 from the point of view of balance, I would be tempted to suggest that everything is sinking towards the bottom of the frame. My eye spends most of the time hovering in the lower area of the photo. If I had to use an analogy, it would be that of a fish tank, where everything that is placed inside the tank sinks to the very bottom.  In the case of Picture 1, I would go further and suggest that everything is not only sinking to the bottom of the fish tank, but it is also falling through the floor and beyond!

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Picture 1.
Classic bad composition (Sinking)

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Picture 2.
What many photographers would consider balanced, but in my view, is still sinking towards the bottom of the frame

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Picture 3.
In my view, this is balanced (not sinking). The composition appears central, even though everything is higher up in the frame

Overall, Picture 1 has a very 'low' feeling to it, caused by my eye being pulled downwards. 

I've seen this kind of composition repeatedly on my workshops over the years and I've often wondered why many photographers employ this approach? I think the reason may be that the photographer is simply trying to 'put everything in the same shot'. Or perhaps it's because they find composition difficult. But I suspect it's because, like most of us, they interpret the world as being made up of half landscape and half sky. So why would you put less or more sky in a photograph would be their reasoning.

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A good framer will always add a little extra space to the bottom border of a matt, so the picture feels more central.

Photographs are fixed perpendicular frames. They only have so much area in which to lay out a scene. We can't get all of what we see into the same frame (although I feel many of us try!), Photographs are not real. They are interpretations of reality. A photograph is a 2D representation of something, framed within a rectangle or square. Rectangles don't exist in nature - the world is not a rectangular thing, so we should understand that when framing the world through a frame, we have to use some kind of notion of balance in our compositions.

Simply composing your images like Picture 1 because you like a lot of sky, does not help the composition, and as explained, creates an imbalanced bottom-heavy composition that suggests everything is sinking to the bottom of the frame and beyond.

In Picture 2, I have corrected the imbalance by pushing the camera south (towards the ground), and therefore moving the mountain and tree towards the middle of the image. But although this is a huge improvement on Picture 1, it still feels imbalanced to my eye. And here's why. a good framer will never place images right in the centre of the frame, they will leave a little extra room at the bottom of the frame so the picture sits higher up in the frame. They know that when you do this, the eye perceives it as being central. They also know that when you put something in the middle of a frame, it is perceived as being lower than central. So even in Picture 2, the overall balance still has the suggestion of sinking.

In Picture 3, I've moved the horizon further up the frame and as a result, I've also heightened the distance between the branches and the mountain to give them more 'breathing space'. By placing the horizon a little further up the frame, I feel I've given the image a more 'uplifting' feeling and it also feels more centred. As discussed in the framing example above, images tend to feel more centred when they are placed higher in the frame. So too is the same thing evident in photographic composition: by placing the key elements of a composition higher in the rectangle, the image is given a more centred feel.

Before I close on this post today, I would like to show how I feel the viewer interprets the above three images by the diagrams below. The black circles indicate where the eye tends to be drawn to, and consequently, illustrates the 'weight' of the image. 

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Picture 1. The mind interprets the balance of picture as sinking

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Picture 2. The mind interprets the balance of picture as more central but still sinking towards the bottom

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Picture 3. The mind interprets the balance of picture as central, even though the main elements of the composition are higher in the frame than the mid point

This subject is covered in my Simplifying Composition e-Book which is available in the store section of this website. I also cover this subject and many other aspects of composition on my Scottish based workshops.

New e-Book - Simplifying Composition 2nd Edition Available

I'm pleased to let you know, that as of today, I've released a second edition of my popular 'Simplifying Composition' e-Book.

completely re-written and expanded (now 68 pages long).

I felt that since writing the first one in 2010, my abilities as a workshop teacher had moved on quite a lot. Over the years I've been teaching my workshops, I've added to my thoughts on composition, so much so, that I felt I needed to update the book to reflect this.

But rather than updating the e-Book, I've chosen to totally re-write it from scratch. So it's definitely worth getting if you liked the first one, and want to learn some new things :-)

Flow..... and relationships between similar shapes and patterns.

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More about the new edition

The new edition is double in size - 68 pages long to be exact, and is packed with lots of new advice and tips on improving your compositional awareness while out in the field and when reviewing the work later on.

In writing this edition, my aim was to utilise the experiences gained over the past six years teaching workshops, to give you an updated view on how to simplify your compositional skills.

The book is split into three sections:

1. Flow. Learning how to guide the eye through the frame in a comfortable and pleasing manner    
2. Compositional Devices. By using certain features within the landscape,  we can strengthen and simplify our compositions    
3. Fieldwork. Best practices, techniques and approach while out in the field

And here is the table of contents to the new version:

S-curves and also background emphasis with focal-lengths.

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Table of Contents

3    Introduction Part 1. Flow
6    The flow of your eye
7     Interpreting the flow within an image
10    An example

Part 2. Compositional Devices

13    Introducing the diagonal line
16    Looking for diagonals in the ground
20    Looking for diagonals in the sky
23    Introducing the curve
25    Curves & mirroring
28    Introducing the s-curve
31    Asymmetrical s-curves
33    Patterns, mirroring & tonal separation
35    Cohesion in the landscape

Part 3. Fieldwork

39    Foreground emphasis
41    Background emphasis
44    Vertical spacing between subjects
47    Avoiding the fish tank effect
52    Visualising in 2D
56    Working with parallax
59    Strengthening composition
62    strengthening cohesion
65    Improving your workflow
68    epilogue

Mirroring in the landscape, asymmetrical shapes in the landscape and parallax issues.

I feel particularly pleased with this updated edition. I felt I got the sequencing of the chapters right because one aspect of composition seemed to lead onto another in a way that has made the book very easy to get into.

I do hope you enjoy reading this one. I fully intend it to be a reference that you can return to time and time again.

Simplifying Composition, 2nd Edition, almost done!

Since becoming a full-time workshop leader in 2008, I feel I've experienced and gained so much more than I ever imaged I would. One aspect of this, has been my own development as a teacher. It's been a great experience for me to teach others - sometimes intense, often a lot of fun, very sociable and highly rewarding. 

2nd edition - a complete rewrite

One of the biggest privileges of being a teacher is that it's not just your students that learn. You learn too.

I feel very privileged to  regularly have the opportunity to get a better understanding of many of the core competencies of photography, simply by having to teach them. I now look at each workshop I do, not just as a place to teach others, but also as a space in which to strengthen my own understanding of what I do and why I do it.

It's been quite some journey and every now and then I like to look back and review things. See where I've been, how far I've come.

Way back in 2010, I published an e-book titled Simplifying Composition . It has been one of my most popular titles and I've used it as the basis of my workshops here in Scotland for many years.  

This year I've been feeling that it's about time the e-Book was updated to reflect where I am now as a teacher. Because of this, I've gone back to scratch and rewritten it.

I'm pleased to tell you that the first draft of the new edition is now complete. Other work commitments aside, I hope to have the new edition released early in the new year.

Revising 'Simplifying Composition' e-Book

Way back in 2010, I published an e-Book about composition which I sell on my on-line store. It is the basis for an introductory talk that I give on the first night of my workshops here in Scotland. I've found it to be a great way of setting the theme for the week ahead as it lets participants think about shapes and tones with the aim of simplifying their compositions.

It's been a few years now since it was published, and I've run many workshops during that time. I've discovered along the way, that each workshop I conduct has provided me with some new level of awareness about composition or my approach to photography in general.

So I've been thinking for a while now, that it was time I updated it. Only, now that I've begun work on it - it's turning into a substantial re-write.

For those of you who own the original, the newer version has a much clearer message about diagonals, curves, s-curves, balancing compositions and contains additional techniques I've learned to help me double-check my compositions at the time of capture.

I think I am always learning, always progressing at what I do, and there is always part of me studying that change in myself. I'm someone who is highly reflective about my art (aren't most artists?) and I'm very aware that there is always a degree of continuous self-improvement at play.