Move your subject out of their comfort zone For instance, placing your subject dead-center will violate the rule of thirds, but it can sometimes create a powerful image (especially when symmetry is involved):ĥ. Then, as you advance in your skills, you’ll want to experiment with breaking these rules. So you can arrange three subjects with their heads at points of a triangle, or you can arrange the subject’s head and the shoulders or arms in a triangular fashion. Triangular composition theory suggests that elements positioned in a triangle tend to look great.In other words, your subject should look toward the more distant frame edge. The rule of space advises you to position your subject looking toward empty space, rather than away from it.The rule of thirds urges you to position your subject a third of the way into the frame it can often be helpful to put your portrait subject’s eyes along the top-third gridline of your image.So here are a few compositional guidelines that’ll help you as you compose your portrait shots:

So in this section, I’ll start by offering a few useful rules, and then I’ll explain simple ways to break them. On the one hand, the rules are great for beginners on the other hand, as you progress, the rules will start to hold you back. There are plenty of portrait photography composition rules (guidelines, really) out there, and I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with them. Use the rules of portrait composition, then break them Here, the mother is looking at her child, which highlights their relationship and emphasizes their emotional connection:ģ. (And in photography, stories are pretty much always a good thing!) See, this technique creates a second point of interest, as well as a relationship between your subject and another key element in the scene, which in turn helps create a story. A child looking at a ball, a woman looking at her new baby, or a man looking hungrily at a big plate of pasta it can all work! You might also ask your subject to look at something within the frame. The viewer will ask, “What’s making them laugh?” and “What’s making them look surprised?” which can lead to interesting narratives and emotional connections.īut be careful when you have a subject looking out of the frame, you’ll push the eye of the viewer to the edge of the image, and unless you’ve composed your shot carefully, you may take away from the main point of interest: your subject.

This intrigue is particularly strong when the subject is showing some kind of emotion.

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