Fotokommission VSETH/VSUZH Courses

It is easy to take an ugly photo of something beautiful, its an art to take a beautiful photo of something ugly.

Composition is about these questions:

• “where should I place what in my photos”
• “how do I use my camera to compose a picture”
• “how do I choose the appropriate focal length to tell a certain story”

For this course we expect you to have the basic knowledge of aperture, ISO and shutter speed. Ideally you have visited Basics of Photography course.

Composition is one of the most basic concepts in photography - at the same time it is arguably the area where you can see improvements the fastest.

Sometimes we think that we need things like a good camera for great pictures but actually knowledge and experience in composition, framing and lighting are essential.

Some people like to talk about “rules” - like rule of thirds (or the golden ratio). Honestly, we believe this is too technical and general. Actually there are better concepts to reach good composition. Nevertheless, composition is a creative tool we use to tell stories in pictures

We will dive into different methods to compose a picture and will see what effects they create. The idea is to gather an overview of the possibilities in composition and to find some kind of workflow that can help you out when photographing.

After introducing the concepts in the first evening, you will have one week to try the workflow out yourself.
On the second course date we will discuss some pictures you sent in and answer any remaining questions. It might be shorter than two hours.

PS: We will print the photo you hand in and send it to you.