The Photographer's Eye

CHAPTER 2: DESIGN BASICS

Composition is essentially organization, the ordering of all the possible graphic elements inside the frame.This is basic design, and photography has the same fundamental needs in this respect as any other graphic art.The danger is the same also—that detailing a technique on paper can lead to it being read as a dogmatic set of rules. It is especially important to treat basic design as a form of inquiry, an attitude of mind, and a summary of the resources available. It is not a quick fix.

There is a useful analogy with language. Using the frame, which we have just looked at, as the context or setting, design basics form the grammar, the graphic elements in the next chapter are the vocabulary, and the process, in the last ...