Photography Composition Tips: How to Train Your Eye

Eye level isn't always the best level

Most of the time, you take photos while standing up. That’s generally a solid approach — but it’s often worth stepping outside your usual eye level.

Sure, it might look a little ridiculous when you see someone lying on the ground with their camera. But honestly, it’s actually pretty fun to try something a little crazy — and it’s not nearly as weird as it looks.

Imagine you spray a circle on the ground in front of you. You step inside that circle, and your job is to photograph the same subject from different heights.

You’ll be surprised how dramatically the photos change when you shift your position.

From a bird’s-eye view, subjects often appear smaller, and the perspective can quickly give the image a condescending feel. A worm’s-eye view, on the other hand, can make subjects look larger and more imposing — sometimes even a little dramatic.

Just give it a try. Grab your camera, pick a subject, and shoot it from ten different angles.

And of course, you’re free to move around — you don’t have to stay rooted to that imaginary circle.

Commit to one lens

One of the best ways to sharpen your photography composition skills is to spend an extended period shooting with just one lens — or one focal length.

We’ve probably mentioned our love for prime lenses more than once. A prime lens has a lot of advantages.

One of the biggest is that shooting with a prime teaches you a tremendous amount about photo composition techniques.

If you really want to train your eye, shoot exclusively at one focal length for a while. It’s more demanding, since you can only move yourself — not the zoom ring — but that’s exactly what makes it so much more exciting.

With a prime lens, you’re forced to think far more carefully about your framing than you ever would with a zoom.

Our tip: Don’t have a prime lens? No problem — just set your zoom to a fixed focal length and tape it down with masking tape. Then head out and notice what you do differently when you’re locked into one focal length. You’ll feel the difference immediately.

Negative space

We absolutely love photos that use negative space — and it’s one of the most powerful photography composition tips we can share.

Negative space is the “empty” area in a photo — the part of the image that surrounds your main subject but seemingly contributes nothing on its own.

That emptiness is exactly what pulls your eye straight to the most important element in the frame.

Images with a lot of negative space often feel especially striking because of this. There’s a quietness to them that really works.

Using this technique effectively isn’t as easy as it sounds, though. It takes a trained eye to know when empty space is working for you and when it’s just… empty.

But you’ll develop a feel for it over time. So, once again: practice, practice, practice!

Shoot in black and white

We’ve talked about our passion for black-and-white photography before — and for good reason.

Photos in black and white often look completely different than they do in color. That contrast is what makes it so fascinating to work with.

Our advice: spend a full day — or even longer — shooting exclusively in black and white. You’ll be amazed at how much you naturally learn about composition along the way.

Stripped of color, you suddenly start noticing entirely different things. Subjects with strong textures, bold lines, or distinct patterns really come alive in black and white in a way they sometimes don’t in color.

Repeating details

Patterns, lines, and textures aren’t just a hit in black-and-white photography — they can look just as stunning in color, especially when those patterns repeat.

Repeating structures can actually look even better in a photo than they do in real life. That’s because the viewer only sees what you show them in the frame. You, meanwhile, also see everything surrounding the subject — all that visual noise that distracts from the real story.

It’s really worth heading out with your camera and focusing exclusively on details like these. Repeating shapes are everywhere — you just don’t always notice them at first. Cobblestones, tiled walls, power lines stretching overhead.

These kinds of patterns make for seriously great subjects. Often you’ll start shooting something and only realize mid-shoot that the repeating details are actually far more interesting than the main subject itself.

Lines

Lines are everywhere in photography — vertical, horizontal, diagonal. And learning to spot them is one of the most underrated photo composition techniques out there.

Spotting them takes a well-trained eye, but once you start seeing them, you can’t unsee them.

Horizontal lines often give a photo a calm, peaceful feel. Diagonal lines add energy and make an image feel more dynamic. Curved lines that wind through the frame loosen things up and draw the viewer in.

Often, the combination of two different types of lines gives your photo that final spark.

Next time you look through the viewfinder, ask yourself: what lines do I see in the frame? And can I change the line — and therefore the mood of the image — by shifting my position slightly?