Chapter 10. Designing the Frame: Posing and Composition

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Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk.

—Edward Weston

In this chapter about posing and composition, I’ll describe considerations you may want to explore to position subjects within a frame in the most compelling way possible. I have earnestly studied all of these rules and concepts, and probably more important, I have practiced each one in more than a thousand full-portrait sessions over the last decade (no exaggeration, believe it or not!). Here’s what I know to be true, given theory and actual practice. ...

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