ABSTRACT
Photographers have only a certain set of choices to make an object visible in an image. They can choose or change the following elements: tonal value to create and alter form and volume; quality of light and the shadows; space; textures; colour; viewpoint and perspective; selection and composition (in the smaller sense of the arrangement of objects); camera controls (shutter speed/aperture); and lighting (studio lighting may be under the photographer’s control). In formal art education and the compositional analysis of paintings, seven formal elements are identified: line, shape, tone and form, texture, space and colour. Part of the creative photographer’s task is recognising and dealing with these in a photograph. Composition is the process of identifying the formal elements and organising them to produce a final image. It is the mental editing used by a photographer, which makes the final image easily ‘read’ by the viewer.
