Composition is the one thing I find so difficult to teach. It almost always boils down to a discussion of the rule of thirds or an even blunter approach—don’t put your subject in the middle of the frame. The rule of thirds is totally valid and certainly not putting your subject in the middle of the frame is a wonderful place to start to make your pictures more compositionally interesting, but it doesn’t touch on the pivot point of composition.

The pivot point is your heart. It’s how a composition makes you feel when you’re taking a picture or maybe more importantly, how it makes viewers feel when they look at your photographs.

I’ve said repeatedly that if I could give amateur photographers a single wrapped up gift all ready to go it would be an appreciation of beautiful light. That’s key. But composition is right there behind it. And there’s no way I can package them to make them easy to execute. You have to put that camera in your hands and get out there and say something with what you see in the viewfinder. Lighting and composition work so beautifully hand in hand and can transform even the most mundane subjects. When the subject happens to be a human face the effect can be transcendental.

I can’t think of any aspect of photography that’s given me more pleasure than shooting portraits and I’ve been doing it a long, long time—since I was in high school. Now I want to fire up your creative batteries and inspire you to get out there and make the world a more beautiful place for the people you love.

Ready to take your Portraits to the next level?

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