Photographer Eric Floberg made this 5-minute video tutorial on the subject of composing portraits.
“Rules are rules for a reason, but they are meant to be broken, so let’s follow the rules and also break them a little,” Floberg writes. “This video features my favorite ideas for composing portraits.”
1. Centeredness “isn’t just putting your subject in the center, it means balancing the image out.”
2. Negative Space “draws attention to your subject in a way that interprets how small they are…”
3. Rule of Thirds: “Whenever I’m considering the Rule of Thirds, I always want to balance out the image.”
4. Background and Foreground: Floberg uses double exposures to add interesting elements to the foreground and background.
5. Natural Framing: “Figure out ways in which you can fit [your subjects] naturally into the scene.”
Watch the video above for Floberg’s explanation of each of the ideas and more examples from his portfolio of photos that were composed with them in mind. You can find more of Floberg’s videos and work on his YouTube and Instagram.