Photo Composition – Line and Space

Learning to See With Your Camera

Photographs of Asia: Using Line & Space

This is a short lesson on a few elements of composition to help improve your photography. This article is about: Photo Composition – Line and Space. It’s part of a series of lessons I am offering that eventually will be put together into an online course. Currently I travel in Asia as a travel photographer creating images that I sell as well as to use to illustrate for teaching purposes, and for Coffee Table Books and stock photography sales.

Thomas Levine has been a professional photographer for over 27 years and loves to share his knowledge of photography. Join Thomas’s To Follow my travels in Asia – FaceBook:  Travels Posts or Photography Posts. LinkedIn

Street Photography – © Thomas Levine Photography All Rights Reserved

Everyone loves to see what it’s like in other parts of the world. With the advent of digital and smart cameras,  Street Photography has become very popular. It can tell a story to your viewers. I define Street Photography as anything on the street or next to it.

I’d like to share a few ideas for those that want to create photographs of their trip to share with friends and family on social media, or just to improve their photography skills. No matter what your goal is in photography, Composition, Design and Lighting are always part of the equation. 

The principals of composition apply whether you’re using a smart phone camera, DSLR, or a mirrorless camera. Creating a photograph is not the same as taking a picture.  This is true with travel photography or at that matter, any kind of photography. There’s luck, and then there’s skill. Learning about what elements are involved in gaining constant and repeated successes is not only rewarding but fun. Using photo composition is a skill that can improve with practice, whether its traveling, at home in your back yard, taking a photograph of a friend or relative, or a plate of food. If you follow the composition rules,  you can create great street photographs, and it’s a lot of fun.

Creating Well Composed Photographs

Create Great Street Photographs will illustrate a few simple composition elements, and how using them will help grab the viewer’s attention. First, define your subject. What are you trying to tell the viewer? It’s also important to direct the viewer’s eye by using composition elements such as color, separation, and space.  Using these elements will go a long ways to helping you define your subject. With street photography, its important to take lot of pictures until the elements fall into place. The use of color not only adds emotions, but it helps to separate some of the elements in the photograph. (More about that further below.)

This image below has space, separation and provides a well defined subject, the wares on this wagon. I left space in front of the vehicle and the green trees separate the subject by contrasting colors.

LINE: Photographic and Art Element

The photograph below uses Line and Space. Moving the camera in close helps show more detail, and in this case established the subject. The foreground contains the subject, creating the largest idol in the group. It’s the first one that grabs attention, then the viewers eye looks down the line as the idols get smaller and smaller. This adds depth and also creates the line that grabs the viewer’s attention. It also establishes a relationship between the foreground statues, and the background statues. Line is a very strong art element.

Space and Separation are both important, but both are very different from each other, yet related. Understanding how to use these elements will go a long ways toward improving your photographs.

Separation

The two images below help define Separation (by example). The first image has separation from others behind him. The man is separated from the lady behind him on his left side. If she was closer and more directly behind, she would destroy the separation between the two. There’s separation between him and what’s behind him in the way of line. Compare this to the image below this one. Too busy, no separation between the subject and the background (in this case the motorcycle. When photographing street scenes the photographer has very little control. Where you are (perspective) and the technical aspects of using your camera is about all the control there is.

The photograph below illustrates a photograph what doesn’t work as well. With street photography, timing is very important. What also is important is knowing which ones you would like to show and which ones you don’t. This is a don’t, but I am using it for purposes of a teaching aid.

Don’t be afraid to take these because sometimes you may not know whether it works or not until later, when you are editing.  Street photography is fluid, often moving all the time. If it was staged, you have control, but it often looks staged too unless you’re working with experienced models.

Create Great Streets Photographs

Every foreign country will create some differences for a photographer to illustrate the culture. What are some of these cultural differences?  Clothing, the mode of transportation and the architecture.  Some areas are more conducive for street photography then others. But like all photography, getting creative and using perspective makes it so almost anywhere has great possibilities.

Because much of  SE Asia is warm, and there’s a lot going on in the open. People are out on the streets and sidewalks and in open air cafes. As a photographer, you have to search out what works. Is it interesting?  Is there too much space or too little space, how’s the light, etc. etc.

Tourism is big in Vietnam and photographers often find interesting subjects that make great human interest travel photographs. It’s about finding the right mix of people, with locations that are not too busy while at the same time defining your subject. I find that the culture dictates what you want as your subject. You will see things in Asia you don’t ordinarily see in other parts of the world. Define your subject or the viewer will lose interest, and any story you want to relay, is lost because the photograph loses its impact.

Define Your Subject

A good photograph must have a subject, and the viewer needs to understand what the subject is. Your photograph should lead the viewers eye to that subject. It’s kind of like a movie. There’s the star (your subject) and then there’s supporting cast (everything around your subject. The main subject (star) is in the center, and the supporting cast would be the motorcycle on the left, and the man walking while the tourist getting a ride on the right.

 

Let Your Subject Tell a Story

Street Photography with people, action can help with your subject tell a story. It informs the viewer about the culture and makes the photograph more interesting. What is your subject doing? Let the viewer think about this. Use a higher shutter speed if you need to freeze the action. Have your camera ready and if you think there’s motion, decide on the best shutter speed. Do you want to freeze the action with a faster shutter speed or show some blur. After you take a few photographs, make adjustments such as your perspective or your aperture or shutter speed. Often there are two or more types of photographs that can be obtained in the same scene. Try thinking ahead when you start out for the day, make adjustments as you go.

Create Great Street Photographs by showing something that is new to the viewer. It’s great when the viewer begins to ask questions about a scene, especially when there is a difference in cultures for the viewer. In the photograph (above) this lady is involved in burning trash in front of her store in Hanoi, Vietnam. This is not unusual in Vietnam, but in many western cultures this practice is not permitted in the city. The more one travels, the more you notice the differences in cultures. Travel Photography is fun and it’s fun to show others too what you see around you.

People, Places or Things Can be Your Subject

My definition of Street Photography  can be anything that is close to street, shows the culture of the area, and is interesting or artistic. This includes not only what’s on the street, but the sidewalks, and  areas adjacent to the street.

 

Space is Important

Practice using your patience, because not everything will fall into place unless you work at it. Patience is a virtue, especially with photography. If the scene is too busy, or if there isn’t enough space between people or vehicles, the photograph can lose its impact. People were walking in front of the store (photograph below), and I had to wait until they were all out-of-the-way, it was a busy street. Magically all the people, bicycles and motorcycles that were in the scene disappeared just as the man gives a warm embrace to the little boy. Looking for human interaction will improve your travel photography.  Hoi An Ancient City, Vietnam.

© Thomas Levine Photography

The images used in this article are for sale as stock photography at a very low price. They can purchase on  www.levinephotography.com  and downloads are sent to your email. They can be used for one time use on your website, or on social media’s outlets like Pinerest or Facebook etc. Prices start as low as .95 cents with no minimum purchase. 

Thomas Levine is a fine arts and travel photographer as well as an educator. His background is varied and he’s spent years photographing advertising products for national publications including: architecture, products, people, food, fine art, nature, now travel. He is currently traveling in SE Asia and sells his photographs for wall prints as well as stock photography.

Thomas is currently working on several travel-coffee table books, and a children’s book. In addition, he’s working to publish his travel stories and photographs in national magazines and travel sites. To see more of his work and bio