Advanced Composition

The Art of Storytelling

Do you want your photos to be more unique and stand out?

Me too! I think we all do, It's really just a silly marketing question. 

However, trying to get your work to stand out is a very real problem and one that has become more and more difficult in recent times.

Photography is now more accessible and more popular than any other time in history, resulting in more than 100,000,000 photos posted just on Instagram every single day.  

How can we ever hope for our images to stand out when there are so many talented photographers and so many great photos shared each and every day...? 

Great news, there is a way.

Interestingly we can find the answers by looking back at the great artists & photographers of the past, the likes of Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Ansell Adams, Galen Rowell, and Fay Godwin. The same things that inspired these great artists, made them unique and elevated them to eternal greatness, can also help our photography to be unique, more authentic and stand out from the billions of other photos out there today! 

What if the secret to standing out was to stop trying to stand out...!

Jump back a few years and my main photography goal was to have my photography stand out and generate lots of likes, comments, and followers. This meant I was always on the look out for photos that would get the most likes. 

The problem is; That is also what the majority of other photographers are trying to do, resulting in a flood of similar photos all chasing the same social media attention and none of which have a personal style or consistently stand out. 

My Instagram feed often looks like the same photographer over and over again, when in actual fact it is millions of photographers all trying to do the same thing. 

If you truely want a personal style that stands out you need to stop trying to please the masses and celebrate everything that is uniquely you! 

Your stories, your passions, your emotions, your vision, your imagination equals your signature style!!!

The irony is, as soon as you stop trying to stand out you much more likely to stand out!

Advanced Composition is more about feeling and less about seeing!

Let's be honest everyone with an iPhone can take a photo that shows us what the scene looked like, however, only the greatest photographers can convey the feeling of being there. 

The greats of the past are not revered due to their ability to show you what your eye can already see, they are considered the greatest because of their incredible ability to express their thoughts, stories, passions, and emotions in ways that the audience can feel and relate to. 

The greatest photos and paintings of all time can make us want to jump with joy, tremble in fear, shed a tear in sadness, buzz with excitement and take our breath away with sheer awesomeness. 

The ability to communicate emotionally is not only common to all great artworks it is in fact what makes them great in the first place.

Once you arrive at the advanced levels of composition is no longer about leading lines or natural framing, it is not the rule of thirds or the golden ratio. Advanced composition is the ability to use these guides to arrange the elements and create a story that has the power to communicate our thoughts, stories, passions, and emotions to our audience through our photography. 

Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Ansell Adams, Galen Rowell, and Fay Godwin never tried to stand out. They stood out because they openly and vulnerably shared their thoughts, stories, passions, and emotions with the world.

But, what if I don't feel anything when I'm out shooting my landscape photos...?  

How do I capture the emotion of a scene when I don't feel anything when I am shooting?  

This is a common question among my students and one that I completely understand. I felt exactly the same way when I first began my journey into creating photographs with more feeling.

Let me compare these two scenarios and prove that you do in fact feel something when you are out shooting.

Scenario #1 - Think about the most breathtaking incredible moment you ever had the privilege of photographing, maybe the sky was exploding with color, a burst of golden light, a dramatic thunderstorm or the peace and tranquility of being alone in a truly spectacular location.  

Think back to that moment, how did you feel? Maybe, uplifted, invigorated, excited, energized, or maybe calm, relaxed and peaceful.  

Now let's take a look at Scenario #2 - It is a cold, wet, grey, Monday morning and you have to get out of your warm bed, get in your car and fight the traffic to start another week doing the job you really hate doing.  

Even if you have never experienced having to do a job that seems to suck the life out of you, you can likely imagine how that might feel. depressing, deflating, sluggish, dark, maybe even angry.  

If you can sensethe different emotional state between those two scenarios then you are on your way to creating great photos that move your audience! 

During this course, I am going to teach you how to use the compositional tools and arrange all the elements in a way that tells more interesting, more meaningful, more purposeful, more emotive stories with your photographs! 

"A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed." - Ansel Adams