I saw an interesting headline grabber on the cover of a well-known English photography magazine the other day - The Secrets of Advanced Composition.
Having taken photographs for what seems like forever and being an avid reader of all things photographic, I felt pretty confident that I knew a fair bit about composition but was certainly intrigued to know 'The Secret'! Just think, here, in my hands, was the key to photographic Valhalla.
Contained within was just what I needed to know to put my photography on a par with some of the giants of photography who all, no doubt, were privy to 'The Secret'.
So, in anticipation, with sweaty palms, I duly coughed up my money and settled down to discover 'The Secret'.
The robbing gits! Turns out it was no more than a padded out, unnecessarily wordy article on using leading lines, rule of thirds, framing and balance.
As far as I could tell the 'advanced' bit was just a few overlaid graphics (arrows) to show you the 'flow'of the eye.
Not even a mention of the 'Golden Ratio'- and even that's not complicated (it's very similar to the rules of thirds; just laid out slightly differently and you definitely don't need to worry about it).
So there it was.
A big nothing.
But my point comes back to..
..
simplicity.
Photography isn't complicated really.
Once you've mastered the basics the rest is pretty much just refining it.
Yes, you can read around other subjects and all of these have their own necessities- flash, macro, night photography, etc, etc but these are all sub genres within the heading of photography.
You still need the basics under your belt before you move forward in using new equipment and techniques.
In flash photography you need to understand light, composition, shutter speed, aperture, ISO.
In macro, you need to understand, light, composition, shutter speed, aperture, ISO.
In night photography you need to understand, light, composition, shutter speed, aperture, ISO and in case I haven't made it clear, you need to understand, light, composition, shutter speed, aperture, ISO.
In terms of composition, there is no 'Advanced Composition'.
All composition boils down to pretty much these few things; Leading Lines Balance Thirds Framing I'll talk about these subjects in more depth in future articles.
In the meantime, don't fall for the hype and please remember that if anyone offers you the 'secret', you can bet your bottom dollar it's not really a secret at all.