ABSTRACT
Composition Most of us are inherently good at composition. It is only when we think about it too much that we stumble over the rules. If you give a child a camera and ask him or her to take a picture of the ocean, you will usually get a well-composed shot that tells a story of the ocean or the sky (there are only two elements), depending upon what strikes the child at the moment. If the horizon is placed in the center, it is a rather uninteresting shot that doesn’t have a point of view (ocean or sky). If the horizon is placed too high, so that the sky is almost out of the frame, the composition becomes uncomfortable because people have a sense of psychological closure and will want the sky out of the frame altogether. Seeing just a sliver of something creates tension. Steven Spielberg used this compositional tension in the fi rst scene of the movie Jaws, where the shark kills the fi rst victim. In the shots of the ocean, the compositions are purposely off-balance to create an unsettling premonition of what was to come. If the horizon is brought down to a point that is comfortable, it will usually land around what is known as the “golden section.”
