Photographic Composition: Principles of Image Design

Photographic Composition offers 250 beautiful black-and-white photographs to illustrate key concepts that will greatly improve your photographic eye and your ability to compose an ideal image.

All fine artists share a common goal: to combine individual elements into a convincing, cohesive whole that tells a story or expresses an intention. Photography is especially suited to this pursuit because the photographer can create multiple, distinct images of a single subject using a variety of design techniques. The display on a digital camera instantly shows the arrangement of elements in an image, allowing the photographer to make changes and refine their creation as they work.

Albrecht Rissler believes that a firm understanding of image design is as important as having an observant eye or having the technical knowledge to operate a camera. Photographic Composition presents the most important concepts of image design and offers 250 beautiful photographs to illustrate these concepts. By applying these concepts to your own work, you will greatly improve your photographic eye and your ability to compose an ideal image.

This book's impressive images are in black-and-white, intentionally removing the distraction of color and making it easy to focus on compositional elements and form. With this book, photographers as well as all visual artists will learn how to infuse their own images with excitement, develop and hone their visual language, and express their personal artistic aesthetic.

Topics include:

• The effect of various aspect ratios
• Perspective and composition
• Form and contrast
• Proportion and harmony
• Symmetry and asymmetry
• Brightness and darkness
• Structures and textures
• The "perfect moment"

Albrecht Rissler began his career as an instructor for artistic-technical classes, but quit the teaching profession in 1980 to form a studio for academic illustration. He taught at Merz Academy in Stuttgart as an associate professor in 1987, and then earned a professorship at FH Mainz University of Applied Sciences, where he taught illustration from 1988-2007. Since 2005, Rissler has been an associate professor at the Art Academy in Bad Reichenhall.