Photography Tips - Perspective, The Low Down

Composition is one of the more difficult parts of photography. Unlike exposure or focus it's more subjective, less technical but just as important. It's not enough for an image to be clear there needs something that draws the viewer in.

There are several different components to composition and the one I'm going to talk about here is perspective, simply where you place the camera. It's normal to walkup to a scene, extent the legs of your tripod and setup at eye level. That is the perspective that people see the world so of course it just feels natural to photograph from there.

However, there are times when it's best to drop the camera close to the ground or raise it way up over your head for a different view. Textured foreground, like windblown sand, just begs to be included in an image. It has the effect of drawing the viewer in and the leading lines push the eye toward the main parts of the image.

Featureless foreground can be leveraged into a grand view by simply raising camera a bit higher than normal. As the photographer it's your prerogative to control how the scene is viewed and the most powerful tool used to accomplish that is perspective. Don't be afraid to think outside the box and mix things up.