Mastering Composition: Create Visually Stunning Shots

1. Welcome to the Class!: When we watch a beautiful film or an eye catching video, we often don't realize how much thought goes into framing each shot. How elements are arranged within the frame is what turns an ordinary image into something mesmerizing. Hi, I'm Eddie. And since I got my first camera, I have been nonstop learning how to take pictures. And for the last five years, I've done 200 videos, and trust me, composition is handy for drawing, photography, and even video. In this class, we're diving deep into the art of composition, exploring themes beyond the frame that will help you capture attention, tell a story, and evoke an emotion in every frame. How you think before drawing or how you position your camera Composition is the foundation of great visual storytelling. We will go step by step from where to position your camera all the way to thinking beyond framing. How to lead attention and portray better than before the story you want to tell in a picture, drawing or even video. For the class project, I would like you to post any photo or video explaining why it's framed the way it is. And most importantly, you'll have the opportunity to ask any questions and get feedback from myself or any other students that are taking this class. There are no prerequisites. If you're ready to unlock the potential of this amazing tool, then I'll see you in the first lesson. 2. About Distance: If you're shooting a photo or a video or even thinking about how a painting should look like, the first thing you should think about is the distance, the distance between the camera and the subject. And the subject doesn't necessarily need to be a person. It could be an object or something you want to focus on. And the distance between the subject and the camera will mostly determine the feeling and what the viewer can see. There are essentially three types of shots at three different distances, white shot, medium shot, and close up shot. White shots establish the setting. Well used, it can portray the feeling of loneliness or awe. But we'll go there in just a second. Medium shots are the normal ones, what you're seeing right now. It balances the focus on the subject and the surrounding environment. Neither too distant or too intimate, it feels natural and relatable. And close up shots capture emotions and details that are important to the story. So easy, right? There are three types of shots, and if you want to think more on the compositional side of things, we have to divide the frame into two parts. The area of the subject is called positive space. And in contrast, the area outside the subject is called the negative space. How much of each space occupies the screen will mostly determine the feelings that the viewer might have while watching. What emotions come when you watch this one? Here I'm just walking from left to right to the beach. You see that I'm pretty distant from the camera, so it's a wide shot, and the positive space is very small, compared to the negative space all around me, it makes the shot feel lonely. So frames where there's little positive space and a lot of negative space might feel lonely, but doesn't need to necessarily feel that way. It all depends on the context. If we take a look at this one, we see that I'm even further away from the camera. So the positive space is even smaller, and most of the frame is actually occupied by the negative space. But when you watch it, the feeling is different. It's not so much as loneliness, but a feeling of awe. And that's mostly because of context. Even though in the first example, there was not much to it. The sky was more monotone. My body language showed more loneliness, in a way. Whereas in the second example, we see that I'm directly looking at the sky. The sky is more colorful opposed to the first one. And just this simple act of observation makes it feel that all this negative space will contribute to the vastness and the off factor, the surprising factor that this shot gives. So these are two examples where you see a lot of negative space, but very little positive space. So let's take a look at the opposite right now. So this shot, you see the subject isn't a person. It's a clock, and it's so close to the screen that it occupies 100% of the frame. It leads to seeing a lot of detail. We're focusing so close, and if it used correctly, we can show the feeling of chaos or sensory overload. So the proximity of the clock to the camera, plus the sound effects really add up to the overload, this stimulus of chaos. But again, it's all about the context. These close up shots don't always necessarily need to feel chaotic. If used correctly, it can also reveal intricate feelings and details that you would never see in white shots or medium shots. Faces show a lot of emotion. And by having a really close up shot, it creates a good sense of connection. Isn't it fascinating B just tweaking the distance, we can change so much of the feeling that the viewer will have while looking at it? Next time you're shooting, taking a video or just drawing. Think about this one. Think about the distance. What feelings do you want to portray? If you haven't tried, so try mixing them up. Maybe a wide shot to establish the scene or a close up shot to really show detail. With that said, best of luck. 3. Focal Length and Distortion: Is something that I decided to include because I thought many don't actually fully understand it. In this lesson, we will focus the effects of shooting all the way zoomed out to all the way zoomed in and what effects it does to our image at the end. Let's pretend this is our subject. This is the thing we want to shoot. The shot you're looking at right now is the camera with the zoomed all the way out. And as we slide the camera further away, I'm going to slowly zoom in to make the subject have the same size in the frame. Can you notice the background getting more and more compressed? These are physical optical properties that you can try even with your phone. To experiment, you can place an object that you want to take a picture, and you first want to take a picture with your ultra white lens. Then switch to your normal lens. You'll notice that with the normal lens, you need to go a little further away to have the object at the same size in the frame. But if you swipe between the two pictures, can you see the difference of the background? You'll notice that the ultra wide lens captures a lot of the background, whereas the Zoomed in lens or the normal lens will compress a bit more. You'll see less of what's on the background, and it's more focused on the subject. People quickly think that, Oh, white shots are better or the Zoomed in shots are better, but they have their differences and they're use for different occasions. So a wide lens makes spaces and environments feel larger. Often evoking an awe or sense of openness. This is why it is used for landscapes or dramatic architecture shots. This is especially helpful when the space is limited and we want to use the ultra wide lens because we cannot go physically further away back. Or in the case you want a nice wide establishing shot. Having an ultra wide lens makes it easier to capture one. You don't have to go so further away. Now, if you zoom all the way, the background is so compressed the focus isn't about what's around the subject. Instead, the subject is the main focus. For example, on this shot in Portugal, I wanted to capture the train going from the right to the left. That's the subject. And because the background didn't really matter, I zoomed all the way in, compressed the background as maximum as possible. And as you can see around this area, you really just see a blur. Meanwhile, the subject is the only thing in focus. So remember, the smaller the focal length of your lens, the wider the shot, the more of the background it captures. The longer the focal length, the more zoomed in it is and the more it compresses the background. I actually learned this when I was taking a picture in the mountains, and you can see the first picture here, I had a lens that was all the way zoomed in and it compressed so much the background. All you can see was this tiny part. So I switched the lens to a wider one, and the difference is night and day. The first picture was unusable, but the second one was perfect. You could see much more of the background, and the picture turned out beautiful. I hope you got to understand what the focal length does, zooming in or out and what uses it does and what does it do with the background. If you haven't done so, maybe you have a spot where you usually take pictures. Try taking pictures with a different focal length. Maybe you're used to taking white pictures. Maybe try all the way zoomed in, you just have to take a few steps back and see the difference in the results. With that said, best of luck. 4. How to Frame Your Subject: Now that we have set the distance between the camera and the subject, the next step is, how do you frame it? You could frame like this, like this, a bit to the left, a bit to the right, a bit more zoomed in or out. How do you know where in this frame you'll have your subject? When me and my friends were at the beach, we saw this person with this huge camera and we wanted to take a group picture just from memories. So I asked him to take a picture, and this is the result. And honestly, I didn't dare to ask another picture, but I was kind of disappointed. The framing was not the best. I understood what he was trying to do, but in the context, it just didn't make sense. Fun fact, I actually explained to them why this picture wasn't so good because they couldn't understand. And this whole explanation sparked the idea of actually creating this whole composition course. So in order to position your subject within the frame, there are in the camera settings these guidelines that might be helpful. In the camera, there should be a setting to change what type of grid you would like to use. And the most common one is the rule of thirds. It divides the frame into three by three equal rectangles. Basically, two horizontal lines and two vertical ones, and it creates nine equal sections of area with four cross points. The idea is to place your subject or important elements along these lines or at the intersection instead of centering them. This creates a more visually pleasing and more balanced composition. Let's take a look at a few examples. So let's add the rule of third grid. So can you see where I'm biking right now in the fog, I'm biking throughout the line of the bottom horizontal rule of thirds guide. If you were positioned in the middle, you see that it doesn't look as good. It loses a bit of its natural balance or in this next shot, where I decided to put the camera very far away, and I framed it so that me with the flashlight would be in one of the cross section points. Those are the important points where you can position your subject, and it will look good. You see how balanced everything looks and how aesthetically pleasing, just by placing the objects on the certain lines or focal points. This also works for photography. Usually, if I'm taking a portrait, the top line will cross my eyes. That's the important part. And that's how you frame a person in the picture. So we learned that in the rule of thirds by placing the subject or the object in one of the lines or one of the points, it creates this balanced feeling if you use properly. There are other grids that might help you, and the next following one is just the centered one, where you focus in the middle point. That's where the eye naturally tends to go. So placing the subject in the middle creates this natural symmetry feeling, which makes it aesthetically pleasing. But now the common question is, when do you center your subject, and when do you don't center it and place your subject maybe in one of the lines? And that's a good question, and it really depends on two things. The context and the balance. Remember the photo that I showed you of me and my friends badly composed? Well, after thinking about it, I understood that he decided to put us in one of the points in the rule of Thirds grid instead of centering us. But if I expand this picture with a little bit of Photoshop, doesn't this look a bit better? That's because the context is just a normal group photo. The background is pretty, but that's not the other focal point. We see that us being in the bottom focal point has nothing to do with the background on the opposite focal point. Let me give you a good example. So, this one is me and my partner sitting in the car, and we're looking to the right and so I decided to frame and move the camera a bit, shift the camera so that we're not centered and we are instead on the left. So because we're on the left and we're looking at the right, we're looking at the sunset, it all feels more balanced. It tells a story. I connects us viewing that direction, and what's on that direction, there's the sun. And all of a sudden, putting ourselves in the first vertical line of the rule of thirds makes sense because there's a context, whereas the group photo the focus was supposed to be just on us and not on the beach. That's why this picture, when you look at it, it really feels unbalanced. The context is not there. We're not looking away there. We're just looking at the camera as a normal group photo. That's why it looks much better if you center it. Let me give you other examples. There was a phase where I was just doing a lot of photoshop art, and I always took into consideration the rule of thirds. So in this case, I'm grabbing my face and I'm looking at the left. We see that because I'm looking at the left, I have to be positioned a little to the right so I give more space to the left because I'm facing that direction. This next one where I clonee myself sitting in two chairs, you see that the first horizontal line of the rule of thirds crosses our heads and the two vertical lines crosses each of our bodies. That's why this picture looks so dynamic and so balanced and so aesthetically pleasing. The same goes for this one, where I'm on top of a hall, the first horizontal line crosses my body and the bottom crosses the hay roll. So if usually there's a context or a person is looking at this direction, then maybe I should be positioned more here. It feels balanced. Instead, if I was positioned like this and I look this direction, it feels off. It doesn't feel balanced. And right now, as I'm talking to the camera, it just makes sense to be symmetrical and I'm in the middle. But at the end of the day, most importantly, the golden rule or just being center, symmetry and all that, they are just rules. You learned about them. You can use them, but sometimes you don't have to follow them. For example, on this shot that we saw previously, the horizon line doesn't really match with one of the rule of thirds grid, but I really wanted to emphasize the negative space on top because I'm looking at the sunrise and I'm so awe and, like, super mesmerized. That's why I decided to position the camera and angle it a little bit more up just to make that more clear. And I think it's a good shot. As long as you're thinking about the framing and they make sense within the context and it feels right, the you're doing it correctly. Now that you've learned these two fundamental topics, the distance and how you frame stuff, next time you're shooting, drawing, or even taking a video, try and think about these things. Best of luck. 5. What Angles to Use: Most of the times you see shots angled like this where the camera is at the same level as the subject. But this lesson, we will explore what happens if we raise the level of the camera so high or lower the angle. For the most natural feeling shot, you want to just put the camera at about the same level of height as the subject. If you lower the camera a bit and pointing more upwards, you're using a low angle shot. There are many feelings that we can feel when looking at such a shot. And in the previous lesson where we covered why the subject should be centered or not, and it mostly depends on the context, the feelings you get when looking at a low shot, also depend on the context. Because if the subject, me in this case, is higher in level above the camera, it feels like I'm more important. It even might give you the feeling of intimidation. With the right context, a lower angle could very well portray inspiration or awe. Here we see that the sky is so colorful and beautiful that it really within this context, within this frame, it makes sense to just put the camera a little lower and look upwards. But if you're the subject and I raise the camera a little higher and pointing a bit down, we're using a high angle, and there's a lot of feelings that could be portrayed. One of them inferior or vulnerable when we see these shots, as the subject is literally lower or inferior in height compared to the camera. With the right contacts, having the subject now looking at the camera, it even evokes feelings of detachment, like you're even just observing them. In this shot, actually, in this room, I was doing a little bit of embroidery, and I decided to put the camera really high up pointing down. When I don't look at the camera, like I don't even acknowledge it, it feels like when you look at this frame that you're just it feels like you're really just observing someone. People often make this rookie mistake when they're taking a picture with a high angle out of laziness. What it accidentally does to pictures of dogs or children is that it makes them feel inferior. Just crouching down and having the same level of the camera as to your subject makes it feel much more natural. Just doing this extra step makes a whole difference in the angle and the feeling that the shot conveys. The Dutch angle is when the camera isn't really leveled. It gives this really easy feeling and it creates all this tension. It's often used when the character has some psychological distress. I personally don't really use this because my stories don't really involve these kind of topics, but here you go. This is something you can use. Now, if the camera is at the same height as a subject, we give this subconscious feeling of equality. It is the most relatable one, the most natural feeling one, and it is the most easy to connect with each other. It doesn't impose dominance or vulnerability. And hopefully, for a course like this, that's the message I'm trying to transmit you. That's why I chose for all of the courses this height and this angle because it really is the most natural looking one. With that said, angles are another tool in the box that you can use. When you first think about something, you think about what feeling you want to portray, and then you position the camera with the distance and now with the angle. And this concludes the framing part of this course. Basically, everything you need to do to set up the camera, where you set up the camera, which angle, that's the framing part. From here on, we'll go even beyond the frame. What I mean by that is, how can we manipulate stuff within the frame to make your viewers look at a certain area. With that said, have fun shooting with different angles, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Use the Background to Your Advantage: Now that we cover the height, distance, and angle, in the following lessons, we'll cover how to direct the viewers' eyes on if you want to focus over here, or here or here or here. And first of all, I'm going to show you a bad example, something one you don't take into consideration. I took this photo a long time ago. Random photo, at the time, I thought it was cool. But now that I look at it, at the time, I thought this was a really cool picture because of all the people going around here, here. At the time, I thought this picture was really nice because it had so much depth and people here and the right in the middle just walking. But there are so many distracting elements. There are so many lights. First of all, these two vertical lines on the right. There are really distracting your eyes because am I supposed to look here in the middle? Am I supposed to look here on the right, or am I supposed to look at this word here on the left, top left with all the lights? It is really distracting. There are so many elements that are pushing my attention that I don't know at the end where to look. Where is the subject, and where should I look at? So the first thing you want to do is to understand where the subject is or what do we want to focus on? And the step after is to look at the negative space. What is around the subject? That is also very important. And in this specific lesson, we'll talk about lines. Lines are created naturally through the background, and we can use them to our advantage when composing a shot. For example, in this picture in the mountains, I just finished hiking and I positioned myself in the middle. This is where the focus usually is where the eyes tend to focus first. So what helps is what's actually behind me. We have these beautiful mountains and see if I draw these natural lines. They all coincide to the middle. These are called leading lines that are naturally made in the background that tend to converge into a single point. And if your subject is in that single point, it just makes it so aesthetic that the eyes naturally just converge in the middle and you know immediately where to focus. And maybe something less natural is this picture shot in the train, and we see the repetition of the seeds, they make this natural line that coincides in the middle also where I am the subject. It creates symmetry and the leading lines guideus to where to look at. And opposed to the other picture, there are so many distracting elements. I don't even know where to look at. These ones are really obvious, and that's a big major point to why they are good shots and why they are well composed. Another point I would like to emphasize is the horizon line. Usually in the portrait or if the subject is human, we don't want lines crossing our head because it is just a distracting element. And how you do that better is just by lowering yourself or a little higher. So you can change where the horizon line will cross. I really hope you can understand the power that leading lines can have within the frame. It leads the viewer somewhere specific, and it makes it so much more obvious where the person should look at. It makes it therefore, just much more aesthetically pleasing. If the viewer knows where to focus on, there's less confusion. The less confusion there is, the more aesthetically pleasing it is. For drawing, it is easier to create these leading lines for photography or even video. You have to frame and think about what's in the background because you cannot create these things. You have to look out for them. With that said, try them. They're really fun and best of luck. 7. How to Add Depth: Depth is a great way to separate the frame into different parts and makes it more digestible to interpret the frame. Essentially, you can categorize your frame into three parts. The foreground, the middle ground, and the background. For example, the foreground would be the computer that's more close to you. The middle ground would be where I am. And the background, which is the wall behind me, isn't that far away, but it's considered the background because it's what occupies this space. It just creates a bit more depth. It creates this interesting factor. It gives more to digest or more to see and interpret. And if done well, for example, this shot, I'm just in the middle with my bike, and you can see the foreground element. There are leaves from the corn plant, and the foreground already tells us something about the environment. It kind of frames me in a way and leads me to focus what's in the middle. The middle ground, it's me with the bike, and the background is just the weather and what's in the background. But the foreground element really glues everything together. It puts the attention in the middle and gives also a bit of detail to what's around me. Not all shots need all three levels of depth, but adding them will create more interesting parts to your story and how you show it. Now, another way to create focus is by using shapes or frames. Doors and windows are naturally good shapes to shoot through. For example, I took the extra work to put the tripod with a camera outside and position it where I would be. And this frame immediately makes it obvious where to look at. I'm right in the middle and it frames me. It's a frame within the frame. It gives more context that I'm in the house, and it also adds that depth, the interesting factor. And I think this turned out to be one of my favorite shots. The extra work to go beyond the natural shot and to add more depth is always worth it. It adds always some interesting elements. It tells a bit more of the story. It creates more context. And more importantly, it leads the person to know where to look at. With that said, have you ever tried putting the camera outside or the perspective of your drawing in another way? This might give a little more interestingness and might frame and glue everything together to tell your story in a better way. With that said, best of luck. 8. The Importance of Light: Light draws attention to where you point it at. So once we have the camera in a certain distance and a certain frame, the light can help also glue together and emphasize what you want to show by making it the brightest part of the frame. In this example, it was a dark corridor, but I positioned myself or I mean, the ghost in the middle of the corridor where the light was shining the brightest. This created a bigger contrast between me and the background, which made it immediately obvious where to look at and it glued the picture altogether. It was a smart move. And here in this shot, we see that the whole classroom is just dark, and me with my flashlight was the only source of light basically over there. And because of that, our eyes immediately go to where the brighter spots are. And these bright spots are exactly where you want the focus to be. Remember that picture I showed in the last lesson? I had all these distracting elements, all these lights, and I didn't even know what the subject was. I just shot the picture randomly, and I thought it was good. I didn't even know where to look at. There were too many distractions, lights here, lights there. It was not that good. But here, you know exactly where to focus. And of course, the way I position this circular light was for me to be in the center where the focus would go and not over there or there, and creates a certain balance, and I think it glues the whole frame together. And the opposite is also true. The light if behind you, it creates a certain contrast with a little backlighting and the focus, again, tends to go over there. So remember, if everything is dark, the first thing that stands out is where the light is. Before I actually framed this one, it was a different time of day, and there was a little bit more light outside. And you see it doesn't look quite as nice as when it's nighttime, and the only source of light is where you want to focus on. Before, everything was bright. So you didn't know exactly where to look at. But now where it's night and I can put a light inside, and the only part that lit up, it's in the middle, Immediately the eye knows where to focus on, and the shot becomes more aesthetically pleasing for that reason. Light, if used correctly, can make a wonderful tool for composition. Use it to your advantage. With that said, have you ever thought about the time of day you're shooting and how the light could be advantageous to maybe a place indoors or just outside? Maybe like last one, waiting a bit more to get darker so you get more contrast between lighting. Have fun, experiment, and I'll see you in the next one. 9. The Importance of Color: In the previous lesson, we talked about the contrast between light. In this lesson, we will talk about contrast between color. It is another tool that can play a significant role if used correctly to grab attention within the frame. For example, in this shot, this whole area is bright. And specifically on that day, I decided to wear something more dark, something that would contrast with what's in the background. And really quickly, you can see that I really stand out within wherever I was in that place. And the focus was more on me. Now, in contrast, if the focus is on something else. Now in this shot, we have this beautiful sunrise with all of these colors, it wouldn't make sense if I use a neon pink or green shirt that would only compete attention with me and the background. Instead, I decided to wear something dark that would just stay away from what you want to focus on. You see me all in dark and everything else is in beautiful bright colors. This contrast makes it more aesthetically pleasing, instead of having the colors being another distracting element. Color, if used correctly, just like light can be another important element to guide the viewer to know where you should look at. With that said, if you're going on a photo shoot or if you're drawing something, the color you choose might actually play a big role on how the shot feels and pay attention to where the focus is. If you want the subject to be really in focus, then make it contrast with what's behind. If you want the focus to be on something else, make the subject wear something more dark or more discreet. With that said, try the colors and best. 10. Different Aspect Ratios: In modern days, everything is shot at 16 by nine, at 30 frames per second or even 60 sometimes. This is something we're really used to. But what if we change the aspect ratio? And what about the frame rate? Whoa. Doesn't this feel a little different? Aspect ratio is the relationship between the width and the height of the frame. Because nowadays we have powerful phones where everything we see on the computer is with 16 by nine. We're so used to this, we think this is the most modern thing. But if we change it up to four by three, on the other hand, it feels nostalgic and even intimate. The box ear shape, it goes back to the classic television days where it was everything in this area. All of my childhood cassettes videos were shot in four by three. That's why in my videos, every time I talk about memories or I want to evoke this nostalgic feeling, I tend to use a different aspect ratio. I cut from what is the modern 16 by nine to four by three. And sometimes I even lower the frame rate because having a frame rate that's a bit choppier, a bit lower gives the sensation of, like, these memories you had that you don't quite remember 100%. That's how you kind of look at them back then. It gives this old feeling. So in this lesson, having just talked about the frame itself, maybe it is something that you might want to try and utilize. If used well, you can evoke the correct emotions, and it visually tells a story better than just using the normal aspect ratio. With that said, maybe try, maybe don't, but that's the luck. 11. The Importance of Movement: And the most important aspect of attention that I don't see other people actually referring that much is movement. This is really internally biological wired for generations for survival, and it is also vital to what you pay attention within this video. If the frame contains excessive distracting movement, it confuses the viewer. It makes it unclear where their focus should be. This is exactly the opposite of what we want. If everything is still and only one thing is moving, that moving subject or object will get all the focus while the whole frame looks pleasing. This is why shaky handheld shots are so hard to watch. I try to keep shaky handheld shots up to a minimum, but sometimes there's no other way. Here, I had to actually cut this shot out of the video because it was just too shaky. Shakiness if used moderately can create a lot of tension, a lot of suspension. But if you're just trying to show something, putting the camera somewhere using a table, a chair, or a tripod and making it still makes everything much better. For example, in this shot, everything is still except for the electric that's going down. With the symmetry and the rule of thirds, it makes everything that much more aesthetically pleasing. You know immediately where to look at, because that's the only thing that it's moving in this frame. There is this shot where I fix the camera at the backside of the car and when placing it fixed, it creates still areas in the frame and predictable moving places, making the shot that much more pleasant to watch. If it was a shaky handheld shot, this wouldn't have the same effect. So you see here, all the benches and everything that we're inside, they're all the same place. They're really predictable, and everything outside is what's moving just like in the car. That's what made this shot truly one of my favorites. And, of course, just like light, just like color, the opposite also is true. So if everything is moving around and in the middle, there's one thing that's completely still that will get the most of the focus. So, for example, here, I was at the airport, and by complete luck, of course, I didn't direct any of these people. I just decided to go in the middle of the frame. I would go look at the screen, point at the screen, and then get out. And exactly at the point where I was looking in the middle of the screen, just being still, just looking, everyone was moving left to right or right to left, which made the shot look that much better because he knew exactly where to focus on. I was in the middle, still, and everything else was basically moving around. This is truly an important aspect, if you think about video. The change in position or movement really draws attention. It catches the attention and it leads to where the viewers should look at. Too many movements, too many distracting things happening at the same time doesn't make a shot look good. Usually, the simpler, the better. Next time you're shooting around, think about this. Think about how you can frame. If you zoom in, maybe you can cut some of the distracting elements off or you can go to a special place that there's not many people and have a specific angle that you want that extra work of cutting the things off and putting the things that you want in focus makes a big difference in how you compose the photos, and that extra work makes it all worth it for the composition of the shot. Best of luck. 12. How to Fix Distractions (Photo & Video): Sometimes there are just things that we cannot control when we're shooting around or we're taking a picture. For drawing, that's a little bit different because you're in control what you put, where, and how. But for photos and videos, that's not the case. For photos, it's actually much easier to correct for these mistakes. And for video is a little bit harder, but it doesn't mean that it is impossible. But still, you should always strive for the best composition in the first place. You cannot fix a bad photo. But you can only enhance a good photo into an excellent one. The same goes for video. A really bad handshake video will have no use. Even if you try and fix the shaky video with all this digital stuff to make it more smooth, it won't. A bad shot is always a bad shot. You cannot fix it. But you can enhance a good shot into a really good shot. So there are shots that you already saw, and you might not even have noticed that there were some corrections made to it. Let me show you what I mean. So for example, this snow shot, there were a lot of distracting elements, I thought. And in Photoshop, it is easier to remove them or change color. You see that there's less posts, there's less signs, there's less stuff in the background, and the focus, it goes into where we are at. Again, the leading lines and just the overall lighting makes sense in this framing. And by taking these distracting elements, it made a big difference to what made a good photo into an excellent photo. For video, you saw this shot. But what if I told you that the original shot looked like this? So the trick is to film at the same position a little bit longer. So the people on the right, they were just resting and they were walking down eventually. But I kept filming, even when the electric wasn't there. And I used that information to mask it on top. That way, I can make the shot seamless. And without the masking, with the people on the right, you see that it creates this competition between the people and the electric where the viewer thinks, Where should I see? Where should I look at? Should I look at it electric? But there's also people on the right. It creates this confusion. So by removing them, all of a sudden, the focus turns everything into there in the middle. That's where the focus should lead on. Making these small adjustments that sometimes you cannot control really does create a good shot into an excellent shot. And the same goes here at the beach. There is nothing in the background except for these two people in the left. And by just, again, the same technique, masking, using another part of the clip where they're gone, we just put them on top, mask, maybe use a bit of feather, so it looks a bit more seamless, and all of a sudden, the shot the distracting element is gone, and we can focus where we want to focus. Good composition at the end of the day is the distance you want to convey the information you want to convey. The focus should be where you want to focus should be. If there are too many distracting elements, the photo or video or artwork just doesn't become that good. So by fixing up these little tiny distractions, if possible, makes a big difference to how a shot feels and how professional it looks. With that said, if you have any shots that could be slightly improved, taking the extra time is always worth it. Best of luck. 13. Let's Mix Everything: The best compose shots have a mix of all of these elements. First, you have the distance, then the angle, then what focal length you're using, then you can use the light to focus where you want to focus and the colors. And if everything is mixed together in a good way, then it makes the whole shot much better to look at. If many of these is new information to you, I understand that it might be a little overwhelming, but what I can advise you is to pick one technique. Pick one variable, so the distance, and you practice with it. You see what you can do and change a bit here there. And then once you feel comfortable, you try another aspect. Why not think about the rule of Turns or about centering the image. And once that's comfortable, why not incorporate an external light? It's these little things, this little step by step that you get more comfortable and you master these elements that you at the end can mix all of them together without really thinking about it. I just sometimes it comes up naturally, but it only comes with practice. And to help you with this, I'm going to show you a beautiful video with well composed shots. And I'm going to explain every shot the composition type I use and my thought process behind it. I would advise you maybe to look at it in one go without pausing just to enjoy the shots. And then a second time where you actually pause and read what's behind the thought process, and maybe you can learn a thing or two. Also, I was born and raised in Portugal and I wanted to show in this video the beauty of many parts that I grew up in. This video actually means a lot to me yeah, enjoy. 14. Mistakes Were Made: I'm going to tell you that not even I after doing it for years, do it perfect. I still make some mistakes. And what I wanted to do in this lesson is show you a picture or a video, and I'll give you some time to identify the mistake. See if you can spot it. So you've probably already seen this clock shot in one of my previous lessons, and the mistake here that really bothers me is I didn't care about the background. I can see something there blurry with another color, and it just takes away the attention from the subject. It makes it confusing. I want to look at the clock, but something on the left, there's a blur, a blob of color that if I just took a few seconds and took it off, it would have made the shot that much better. After doing so many portraits and abstract pictures, here I failed to put the tripod with the right angle and the horizon line crosses my head. If only I adjusted the angle a little bit more up or down, it would have made a big difference. This shot is a great one. It's just that I couldn't control when people go from left to right, passing by in front of the car, and the movement itself creates a lot of distractions. Of course, I could have masked out, but with all the intricate details of the cars, it would have just taken way too long. So instead of masking, I just took a few fractions of moments that there was no movement behind me. This one's a bit harder to spot. Maybe it doesn't really bother you. But for me, what it bothers is that I cut off the photo in one of the joint points. Anything that rotates and moves around our body, so shoulder, elbow, hands, ankles, it just feels weird when you cut them there. But I guess the attention so much on the face that it doesn't maybe really matter. But if only I would have just put my hand a little bit higher So this one's actually easily correctable, and it's kind of hard to spot, but the photo isn't completely straight. It is 0.7 degrees kipped. When I first shot this and I posted my video and I re watched it, I noticed afterwards, and it's something that's so small, but you just notice it when you correct it. Unless I'm going for an uneasy feeling, we have to correct for any crooked shots. So you see, even though I know these rules for ages, I still make them, but it's good to identify them and try and avoid them next time. I hope you'll learn something, and I'll see you in the next one. 15. Breaking Down Composition: Photography Examples Explained: After some very nice feedback I received, I decided to complement this course with another extra class that focuses more on photography and photography with people, maybe on trips. So for this class, I compiled a few photos I wanted to show you what went right, what we wrong, and maybe the thought process behind it so you can better understand. So this is the first photo I wanted to show you, and I think it's one of my favorites, actually. It has a lot of elements that add into it and make the photo overall great. And there were a few things I would like to talk about. And the first one is focal length. We covered already what focal length does, and in this case, is a 35 millimeter, which means it will compress somewhat the background, but not all the way, like a 50 millimeter. That's why when you buy a 50 millimeter lens, that's usually considered the portrait lens because the background is so compressed, you can basically not understand anything that's what's around it. And for this photo, I think it's a great focal length to use, because if you take a look at the background, you just have vertical trees with branches and no leaves. Nothing too special, nothing that you would like to focus on. I'll go into later what happens if you want to focus something in the background. But in this case, I want the focus to be in the person, in the subject here in the middle. And the second thing I would like to talk about is aperture. The wider the aperture is, the more open, the more blurrier the picture gets in the background. I feel like this is a really common mistake when people buy their first prime lens is that, oh, my lens can go to F 1.8, so really blurry. And all their pictures that they take from there on are always in 1.8 or 1.4, whatever it's widest. And the problem is, they often don't really think about which kind of situations they should use 1.8 or maybe F 8.0. But in this case, here in the photo, we see that the background really doesn't matter. The background adds to the picture. It gives some sort of context, but really the focus is not there. It really doesn't matter. So it's good that it's separated by a little blur. And in this case, I asked the subject to pick up some leaves and then throw it against me up and in my direction, so that all these leaves here, here, here, they're really close to the camera, and it creates this sense of depth, which is really good because we have a foreground element. A middle ground element that's where he's standing, and then a background element here where the trees are. This is really crucial. It creates this really nice sense of depth and three dimensionality that makes the photo really nice and pleasant to watch. Of course, we see that it's symmetric and that the hands are not cut. And I'm cutting the photo here about the thigh level. And I believe we already talked about it, but in any photo, you really shouldn't cut where any rotational joint is in your body. So your hands and feet are there your neck or your elbows, knees, anything that rotates, you shouldn't cut it there. So in this case, the knees are way below, and I just cut here. Otherwise, it wouldn't feel balanced. Last point I wanted to talk about here is that this was taken during midday, which means the sun was pretty harsh. So in this case, I strategically placed the person where there was a shadow here. So you see the face, there's no harsh shadows. This is something I wanted to show in the next picture. There's a lot I don't like this picture, by the way. There's a lot of bad things. It was just we took one picture, it's like, Okay, it's done. It's not worth it. Sometimes it's not worth it. First of all, see the shadows is just really hard to look at the camera, especially when the sun is so bright. There's a lot of distracting elements. The lamp is cut here. I don't like that. My feet were cut in the frame, and you can immediately see it doesn't look good. And as you can see, cutting on any of the joints and the feet hands, especially, really makes the photo unbalanced. And there's really no symmetry. Rule of thirds should be here, and I'm not there. It's just overall a bad photo. Also here in the background, we see a lamp that's pretty distracting. It shouldn't be there. It takes away the tension to where you want it to, which in this case, is me. We first of all, see that the focal length is completely different. Comparing the first photo, we see that it's on 35 millimeters. The background is more compressed. In this case, it was taken with a ten millimeter, an ultra wide. So in this case, on your phone, it would be an ultra wide lens. And we see that everything in the background is mostly in focus, which in this case, is something I really wanted to portray because it was the focus should be on the person, and the flowers also take part of the picture. So what's on the background? So something to generally note is, the more zoomed in you are, the more compressed the background is, but also the more blurrier it gets. So if you have a zoom lens, if you have constant aperture, if you zoom all the way in, you'll get more of this blurry effect. In this case, I didn't want that. I went all the way out almost fish eye lens, and you see almost everything you can see that's in focus. The hands was something I found interesting because before her hand was like this, and it would cut here, which wouldn't be great. You never cut it where the hands are or elbows or anything like that. That's why having your hands more up, it creates more of this dynamic movement and more balance overall. Here is an average photo. Nothing too special. I don't like these distracting elements here, here, here, here. I would take these out in Photoshop. But it really is just to show the difference between the focal length. The first one you see really compresses the background. This one is an ultra wide lens, so you really see everything that's around. This is another example where you see a wide angle lens makes a big difference. You see that the focus is on them, but also you can see what's in the background. If this were taken in maxim 50 millimeters or higher, you wouldn't see all these pretty buildings that's in the background. So this is something to really care about when you are going on a trip. Thus, I wanted to show you the next picture. I took my 56 millimeter length, so really zoomed in. And basically, you see almost nothing from the background. It's really compressed. The mountains are all here, and you can barely see what's happening in the background. It's so compressed with the 56 millimeter. So the focus immediately goes here. And I would say, also, I would edit the photo, so I would crop this until maybe here, something like this because the knees here are cut, which is not very nice. So I hope you got to understand that maybe for a trip, I would maybe prefer to use a wider zoom lens so I could have more flexibility into different types of situations and also think about the aperture you're going to use. If you want the focus to be more on the subject, of course, open more the aperture so there's more of a blur and depth but if you want to show what's also behind it, I would go a lower focal length for the phone, for example, would be maybe an ultra wide lens so that you really see what's around it and more in focus. I've seen, for example, in Paris, where they would take their 50 millimeter, which is really zoomed in, and they would take a picture of the person and the Eiffel tower behind so what will happen is it would be so compressed and with F 1.8, it would be the person and a little blob here of blurness which shouldn't be the case. So be careful with the aperture you choose. Having to think about these things prior makes a really good photo into an excellent one when you go into the editing process. With that set, I hope you understood a lot of these things that go into my mind before I take a picture and best of luck for your very own pictures. 16. The Importance of Balance: So a friend of mine actually took this course because he was interested in photography, and he wanted to learn more about composition. And he actually went through the whole course. He had a vacation and took his camera and took a few shots, thinking about the things he learned throughout this course. And he sent them to me for feedback. There are a few things I wanted to emphasize more because the improvements that he made now, I wanted to also add this as an extra part of the course. The importance of balance was already covered, especially when we were talking about the rule of thirds. But in this case, I wanted to really solely focus on really the importance of it. Balance in the photo is something that you feel. If something is not balanced, if I'm sitting here all the time. Then the frame doesn't really feel balanced because you have this circle in the middle, but I'm not in the middle of it, and it feels a little bit off. So me being in the center makes sure that this whole frame feels balanced. And when I saw some of his photos, which I got consent, of course, to show to you guys, I noticed that some of them, I understood why he took the photo that way. Let me just show you so you understand. So this is the first photo he sent me, and I understood what he was trying to do. For example, here with the Rule of Thirds, I understood that he put the subject, which is the spot in one of the focal points. I understood why he took it that way the same way that the person that took our photo that the one I didn't like took it that way. They learned to put maybe a subject in one of the focal points, but they didn't think the next step. The first step was done, rule of thirds, but the next step is balance. So, for example, here, we see that it's in one of the focus points, but there is no balance. If you look at the opposite focal point, there is nothing that we want to look at. When you look at the picture, you have this feeling that something's off so when I was explaining to him, I explained that, if you have your subject in one focal point, you should have something at the other focal point that you want to focus as well. So there's a balance. If there's weight in one side of the balance, there should be weight at the other side of the balance as well. So everything becomes evenly distributed. So you see here, I'm at this one point, and the other point, there's the land post. So it feels balanced that way, especially because I'm kipping in this direction. I also explained for this photo of me in the car, I'm in the middle, so it creates balance. If I was in one of the focal points, something at the other side should be interesting. But this is not the case. That's why I decided to center. And I stay here in the middle and at the lower line of the line of the rule of thirds. Showing more of what's up to us, the sky feels usually more natural, just like this frame here right now. I'm showing you more what's up because sometimes I add text, or if I was sitting like this, it would feel a bit too tight on the frame. That's why I usually add the subject in the bottom horizontal line instead of the vertical one because it adds more balance to it. Having a little bit of room to especially if I add text or any sort of animations, it feels more balanced. Since we're here in Photoshop, and we want to fix the photo, something like that. I'm not going to go more into detail in terms of fixing the photo. But you see that the photo now feels way more balanced. You see the rule of thirds. It's at the bottom third. It has more breathing room at top, and the subject is in the middle. Another example is this photo, which I think it's a great photo of so a person. We see great use of the color. The red dress really pops out of the frame. You immediately know what to look at. But it wasn't quite there. I only the subject would have been centered within the frame, you see the door creates this natural frame around the subject, but the subject isn't centered around that natural frame. So all of a sudden, the photo feels a bit off balance. It feels a bit weird. If you could go back in time, I would ask the subject to be in the middle of the door instead. So it would feel really balanced, a frame within a frame and popping red color, it would have been an amazing picture. But unfortunately, it wasn't the case. It's a mistake to learn for next time. Think about the frame, the subject, the composition. The rule of thirds is great, but just what's in the background is also very important and what adds to the balance and textures. So I hope you got to learn a lot more about balance and how to correct it and how to think about maybe the background and how everything goes together in one piece. So the rule of thirds, the composition, the framing with the framing and the color, how everything works towards the balance and how important that is. Don't worry, it's okay. You can always learn from other people's mistakes. You can always look back and interpret and of course, you can always post any pictures you'd like some feedback. I'll always watch them, and I'll always give feedback to other students as well. So with that said, I'll see you in the next one. 17. Black and White: So this is a follow up from the last lesson, and my friend also sent me a few pictures. Some of them were black and white, and this is a theme I thought I didn't really touch. I have a few things I wanted to tell you, a few examples I wanted to show you some examples, and mistakes that maybe you might want to think about when you're taking black and white pictures because black and white often is used to look trendy or to look more creative. It can look really well. It can look it's a great feature to have, but sometimes it might be misused and you take away stuff from the picture, information that you might otherwise would have helped you. I will show you a few examples. My friend took this picture, and it was in black and white. Honestly, I think it's a great black and white picture because it has these different textures of the rocks and the fluffy texture from the trees with a nice little road. But I would say, again, touching the last lesson was the balance. You see this house here pops up immediately to me, but it's so far off left that it feels a bit weird this photo. If you were to be framed differently, maybe it would have been a much better photo. But about the black and white, this is not the worst example because there's a lot of high contrast elements. You have the really blacks and the really whites. And that's what it's really about. Let me show you a bad example. For example, this photo would otherwise be better if it were to be shown in color, because the houses would have had a different color to the mountain, and they would have really popped. The use of color here would be really important because it would really pop there. And by just taking it in black and white, it takes away the information, which all of a sudden makes all of the whole mountain seem kind of the same. You see the houses, yes, but I would still put color because they would really pop out from the mountain. To have a great photo that it's in black and white, you first must have high contrasting elements, so really darks and really bright. The second one is that the color palette is boring anyway. So, for example, the photo of the house, we're losing information because the houses are maybe bright color. They have roof, they have red roofs, which would have been really interesting to see in color. But if the photo has a boring palette, it's okay to be black and white. You're not losing much information anyways. If the photo is all about light and shadows, it also adds to the contrasting elements of dark and bright. And the last one, if the color distracts from the subject, there's a lot of distracting elements of color. Then if you use black and white, it flattens the whole thing and it doesn't distract the image as much. Let me give you a few good examples. For example, this one is a photo of the Allianz arena I took a long time ago, and you see the high contrasting elements. The light and shadow, you see how the light hits the outer shell of this beautiful stadium. And this is a great example of a black and white picture. Another one is this one that was black and white. I might have had some color from, like, some elements here and there, but because the color palette was so boring already, I decided to just put black and white to not make the colors distract from the textures and the viewer. You see it has this diagonal line, and it works with the balance. If you have here a focal point, you want to have a focal point in the opposite direction, so it's more balanced. And you see the high contrast elements and the textures make it really interesting to be transformed into a black and white photo. This photo was taken a long time ago, and if I were to take it now, and something I would improve on is to have a lower aperture so that Everything would be in focus. So you see here, the focus is on this stair, the second stair here, but the top stair is a little bit blurry, which is not great for this kind of thing. It's great if you have a portrait, and the focus is on the person and not anything else. But here you see the focus should be on every single step, but not everything is in focus. So I would take differently. I would have a lower aperture so everything would be in focus. Having all those elements that there's not much color already to begin with color is not important. Having great contrast so you can understand what's going on and the play with light and shadow. These are all four elements that indicate that maybe the photo should be in black and white. I hope you got to learn a lot more about this theme and this topic, and I hope I see you in the next one. See you. 18. Active Framing: Make Every Element Count: I'm very grateful for this course because a lot of students were very proactive. They submitted and questioned how could they improve their composition? But I noticed one key, very common point that could be improved for most of them. That's why in this lesson, I decided to print a few of your examples so that I could best demonstrate you this concept. And it is to think about your frame. Is everything in the frame necessary? Because chances are if it is not, then your photo or video could be improved by changing slightly the position. Let me give you an actual student example. But you see, the focus that we have in this photo is this cloud in the middle. And I think in itself, honestly, it's an okay shot. Your frame is basically this rectangle. And do you think everything in the frame is there to tell the story? The story being the cloud, which is the main subject. Big part of the frame. You see? Actually, more than half of it are occupied by the trees. One, the focus is this middle cloud. So to better compose this shot, we want to enhance the subject while telling the story of what is in the background. The trees are essential but not so essential to have more than half occupying your screen. And quite quickly, if I just quickly crop like this, you see now focus is much more on this cloud, and it also tells a story that is surrounded by trees. The cloud is centered. There's a foreground element. This is our next example. You clearly see that the main subject is this house temple here. However, the elements outside are necessary to tell the story. They're there, and they're beautiful. However, the house is slightly shifted. In this case, we have this part of the frame not actively thought, and this is just extra information. We just cropped a little, and all of a sudden, the house is centered, framed beautifully by this foreground element, and by the rocks here, there, this little tree that maybe could be photoshopped out. You see the difference before and after, thinking about the frame that this part has a little extra information. You crop, so you center it, and it makes a much better shot. This is a really cool shot. However, you see, there's these elements here, these branches so the following what you see isn't what I did, is what they actually did. They removed the distracting elements and all of a sudden, Wow. Isn't that a much better photo? Also, the previous photo felt a little unbalanced. That's why we cropped a little here on the right side. And I save the best example for her last because this shot feels more like, for example, a tourist shot I think in itself is a good memory shot. There are photos you take because you want to remember them for later. But if you're talking about composition wise to be more aesthetically pleasing, there are just too many elements. There's this I'm not sure what it is Paul. There's palm tree. The lights of this car is very distracting. The car here is cuts. It's also pretty distracting. This building is here. It's all right. It feels like the main subject could either be this tree or this building. But they both kind of compete with each other. The trick here is to realize what do you want to show? What elements in the frame are there on purpose to tell the story? All of these elements are not there. It just creates a distraction. That's why this photo feels, you know, a bit random. But it is very positive to know that there's a lot of photo opportunities. If you were to walk maybe a little closer and you focus more on this part of the building. Well, this busilding is actual quite beautiful to maybe you can walk around this building and zoom in a little more and see which part of the frames. Maybe a side shot here where the palm trees are on the street. Might get very interesting. It's a lot of trial and error. You try you shoot, and then you review it. See what parts of the frame are there because they're helpful to tell the story. All photos are stories. Is everything around the frame trying to be there to complement the story? If yes, then you should add it. If no, maybe you can walk around, maybe you can zoom more or less depending on where you are. This is an excellent exercise for you to maybe review older shots or maybe when you're on site with your camera, it really helps to know where and what to frame. I hope this helps, and I'll see you in the next one. 19. Five Best Frames from Japan: To wrap things up, I want to not only show you the best five composed footage I shot in Japan, but I want to explain what thoughts were behind it and even the process behind these shots. These are videos, but great looking photos can also be achieved using the exact same methods. Let's start off with me in an Internet cafe in Japan, entering my private room. What makes this shot so appealing to me is the clear guiding lines throughout the floor and the ceiling. These are naturally created by any corridor, and they lead the attention right in the middle where I am at. That's where your eye should focus. How did I get this shot? Luckily, in the end of this corridor, there was a microwave. And yeah, I would just have to pray that no one would come because I would just put the camera there, go there, fill my shot, and come back. And combine that shot with the following one is the actual shot where I enter my private room. The place where I would stay for the night for very cheap. I think what makes this shot so interesting is the play with light. The door just opens. You see a little bit of light, and then I turn the light and everything reveals itself. Of course, the camera being that high creates also a very unique guiding line that goes right in the center. And as to how I got this shot, luckily, there was a piece of metal, and I put there my magic arm and basically hang the camera there with an ultra wide lens. That's how I got it. For the third set of shots, of course, I had to include these nice train shots. And what makes them so aesthetic? Well, there's two things. First of all, the train goes alongside the lower third, and I decided the lower third because you have more interesting things you want to look up instead of down. It wouldn't feel balanced seeing the train on top, while you'd see maybe a few things at the bottom. Of course, the train being the only thing that is moving makes it so that it's super aesthetic while looking at it. It creates all that attention in the photo. Both of these charts for video and photography require a tripod because if you film with a tripod or you take a picture with a tripod, everything in the frame moves and it doesn't create that same feeling. Here, I got an example. It was raining and I had no chance of using the tripod. It is not the same as putting the camera on top of something where it's completely still, or if you don't have anything, the tripod. Why everything in the frame is so still, but only the train moves. That makes it so beautiful. The store name is somewhat in the middle of the frame where it should be focused on, but more importantly, it's the depth. I purposely decided to put the camera on a tripod on the other side of the street, zoomed in so I could create this depth feeling. Basically, we have a few cars passing by while I go in the store, right in the middle. The road is slightly inclined, but I framed it so that the store would be straight. If there's anything I could change would be the tree, but I couldn't control that, so I had to be there. And in this last shot where I had a rental friend in Japan, this was the final scene where we said goodbye. I was just explaining to him, how would we go part ways for the final scene of the video? Cameras on the tripod, were the only things moving here. There's no people in the background. There's leading lines leading to the center where we're standing. This shot is nice. A general rule for photography or video is you know where you should focus on. And that's why we combine everything, centering it, maybe the rule of thirds, leading lines, light, all of these things that we learned throughout this time was to only make sure that the viewer, me or you know exactly where to look at. And especially for video, the best shots are the ones where you put them on the bench or tripod because still and clear shots elevate them so much more. Thank you so much for watching, and I hope you learned something. I'll see you in the last one. 20. Thank You for Watching!: Thank you so much for taking this course. I hope you understand that by mixing and combining all of these tips together, we'll raise the potential and how well composed the shots will look like. The best way to level up your skills is to actually get good feedback. So always feel free to share any shot, any artwork or any video with us, and I check all of them. And if you want, I can also give some pointers and feel free to ask any questions also in the discussion tab. Feel free to post a review. It really helps. I also created other courses about video and other aspects. Feel free to check them out. I also post weekly videos on my YouTube channel with really detailed videography and storytelling. Feel free to check them out. With that said, thank you so much for taking this course and best of luck with your future projects. See ya.