Photography Composition Tips

Taken from "101 Photography Tips" by Chris Marquardt

http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/

1. Focus then recompose. Many cameras allow you to pre-focus a shot by half-pressing the shutter button, and then when the right moment is there, fully press the shutter. This way you can capture that perfect moment more precisely, especially with older point-and-shoot cameras that have a longer shutter delay than more recent ones.
2. Learn to love overcast days. The dynamic difference between shadows and harsh sunlight at noon is hard to handle for most digital cameras. The diffuse light conditions on an overcast day are your friend.
3. Get closer. Robert Capa said: "If your pictures aren't good enough, then you aren't close enough". Next time you take a picture, try to walk a few steps towards the subject, or even pick out a detail of a scene rather than the whole thing in one. You'll be surprised.
4. One subject only. Pictures often work better if there's a clear subject. Competing subjects are hard to handle.
5. Don't forget about the background. Often you find yourself paying a lot of attention to the subject (the foreground) and completely ignoring the background. The background is as important as the foreground, it is a part of your image. A simple step to the left or right will help you avoid things like branches of trees growing out of your subject's head.
6. Change your point of view. Every day we see the world from our own perspective, usually from our own eye level. Change your perspective by shooting from a frog's perspective or from within a fridge and create an unusual look that people won't forget.
7. Moving subjects need space. Your compositions of a car, a bicycle or someone walking will usually look nicer if you give the subject some space in your image to move into.
8. Use negative space. Negative space is the part of an image that is not your subject. Don't be afraid to use lots of it every now and then.
9. Avoid falling lines. Tilting the camera up when taking pictures of buildings will produce "falling lines", e.g. the building will look as if its leaning backwards. Sometimes that cannot be avoided. This can usually be fixed in post processing.
10. Keep water lines horizontal. If you take an image of a lake or the sea, make sure to keep the horizon level. Even a slight skew of half a degree will make the viewer feel uncomfortable with the picture.