7 Simple Landscape Compositions to Start Practicing at Home

Last updated on May 10th, 2022 at 02:26 pm

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Must you be thinking about landscape compositions at home and that too practice? This guy needs some rest!

Yes, so basically, compositions enhance your skillset, and you can master them anywhere, right from sitting at home to walking on the roads.

In the last post, I talked about self-learning landscape photography from scratch, and this time we are moving further with composition skills.

What are Compositions?

It is setting elements in the image such that it should look well structured & pleasing to the eyes. Also, it should make the viewers look twice and think thrice before moving ahead.

That’s what I define; it varies from person to person and experience level.

7 Simple Landscape Compositions, which you can start practicing at Home

That gets genuinely based on acquiring skills at home. i.e., you must focus on a skillset and apply it in the outer world.

1. Rule of Third

You must have heard about the Rule of Thirds several times. Rule of the third can apply it in a photo composition in two ways –

A.  At the time of the shoot

I would mainly say to focus on the Rule during the shoot because the minimal effort in post-processing is reasonable. During this period, make your mind so trained that it gives direction to apply the Rule of Thirds in a minute.

B.  At the time of post-processing

You can crop and move the subject to any intersection point during this time phase.

As you can see in the image above, I wrote the image with the Rule of thirds using a tube light and wall clock.

The Rule says that you should place the subject where you would like to highlight the importance at any four intersections.

# Rule of Thirds in the Landscape Image

You can see below a landscape composed image; I had applied the Rule of thirds here.

2. Centered Composition

As the name says, “Centered” means placing anything at the center of the frame.

Centered Composition is the most simple and widely used in every photography niche.

I composed the above image using the wall clock and tube light in the center of the frame. You must have seen the center compositions in the portraits where the human fills the center of the frame.

It’s also an instrumental and influential composition in the landscapes.

I had clicked a landscape image with the center composition below.

# Rule of Centered Composition in the Landscape Image

It simply makes the viewer’s eye focus on the center of the frame, which is also the main subject.

3. Rule of Odds

During your school days in the maths class, you must have remembered when a teacher says, “students list down the odd nos.” Many of you must be confused, and it’s pretty standard because as a kid, most of us don’t grab quickly & including myself too ?. It was a moment of embarrassment and happiness because the teacher punished us, and we didn’t need to listen to the boring lecture anymore ?.

Okay, let’s come to the present.

So, we are talking about odd nos, 1,3,5,7, etc.

Rule of Odds says composing an image with the odd no. of elements.

But why odd?

Because it’s a human tendency to imagine things in pairs, our mind tends to complete the items if we see an unpair or individual.

The motive is to make the viewers imagine what the image is all about and think as hard as possible.

You can look here at why you should use the Rule of Odds in Photography.

4. Rule of Space

The following Composition is the Rule of Space; it merely means to give Space to the subject in the direction it will go ahead.

For Rule of Space, I used a toy that I used to play with as a small kid. The image below shows that the toy is moving ahead, and the mind has already imagined the toy crossing the frame.

# Rule of Space Composition in the Landscape Image

You can see below an image with a person walking in a direction. The mind imagines by looking at the idea that this person is walking downhill and will soon reach his mark.

5. Negative Space

Negative Space means leaving a part of the frame wide open to portray what’s happening on the other side of an object. Leaving Space gives the thing to appear more comprehensive in the frame.

Such as, in the sky cases, trees are left plain with negative space composition.

You can look here for Landscape images composed using the Rule of Negative Space.

6. Leading Lines

Leading lines takes the viewer’s eye from starting to the end. The line could be any line; it can be small, wide, thin, etc.

The main motive of the lines is to indulge the viewer’s attention and guide them through the bars.

In the image below, I had tried to explain using two bedsheets as lines (remembered, it could be any line) that guide towards the bottle. I hope that the top lines’ Composition is quite clear.

7. “S” Curves

The leading lines “S” curve creates interest among the viewers and guides them to the endpoint.

Suppose you are standing at a particular place situated on a height and when you look down a road could be seen. That road could form a straight line if you are standing on a foot; that road could create an “S” shape curve or zig-zag from the mountains.

Practicing it one by one daily or alternate basis will make you see the images differently after that. However, you will always find yourself visiting the photos like never before.

You can look here for Landscape images composed using an S-shaped curve

Conclusion

The more you click, the more you notice different elements in your pictures, making you learn and grow as a creator.

There might be 100’s landscape compositions, and some will get discovered shortly. But, It all depends upon how you want to see the world and share your point of view with others. It’s also not possible that learning every Composition at home will do everything.

After all, you have to step out into the real world for your practice and different compositions.

Until then

See you on the roads.