composation

Understanding Composition Guidelines

Composition guidelines are loosely referred to as rules; such as in the title of this article. They are, in reality, merely guidelines ... proven design principles used by artists and designers to assist in the organization and creation of their work. Obviously, as visual artists, it is our right to compose our images any way we want and there are no hard and fast rules to which we are bound. But the guidelines help, and it is critically important to the diversity of our portfolios that we make the distinction between using them as rules and using them as tools.

Composition guidelines exist to help us organize the elements of a scene. They are suggestions for predictable results and should be used with discretion. When we start allowing guidelines to rule our work, our images themselves can become predictable ... a terrible fate for an artist.