5 Tips for Beautiful Composition

Toronto Travel Massive kicked off the new year with some exciting announcements including the launch of the Travel Massive Marketplace followed by a lesson in perfecting our iPhone Photography or “iPhoneography” with some key tips and tricks.

In typical Travel Massive fashion, we kicked off the festivities in high energy thanks to our special guest speaker Hannah Tydemann-Klassen. An avid traveller, Hannah has travelled extensively including: Thailand, Asia, Europe, North America, South America and also spent time volunteering in Africa before leaving the Corporate world to establish Curio Trips – an extremely talented group of designers of niche trips around the globe, taking the travel planning stress away from honeymooners, couples, friends & families, corporations and groups. More recently, Hannah took Curio Trips to a new and exciting level with the launch of her Secret Honeymoons offering.

Photo Credit: Natalie Taylor

Next we were offered some awesome tips and tricks to get the best out of our iPhone Photography all courtesy of GTA Photography Classes. Here’s just a sneak peak of the event: 

5 tips for beautiful composition

#1 Rule of thirds (split your frame into 9)

• Don’t place your subject in the middle of the frame
• Keep in mind both your subject and everything around it – including additional subjects
• When photographing people – look at your subjects face and eyes
• Panning – slow shutter speed, move with subject to blur the background
• Keep negative space above your subject rather than below
• When using an iphone turn on the grid to turn your screen into 9 sections

#2 simplicity

• Less is more
• Keep it simple
• Move in closer (to your subject) – do NOT use your zoom
• Watch the background – remove distracting objects if you can (if you can’t blur the background using depth of field)
• Experiment with angles (walk around the subject…..or move it!)
• Get up high and down low to change your perspective
• Convert to black and white will simplify it – especially if there is a LOT of contrast
• Get in close, get in closer

#3 Framing

• Look for natural framing where possible
• Frame can be anything (get creative)
• Step back and look
• Play around with depth and perspective
• Reflection shots are all about angle(s)
• Angles and lines are great for creating unique frames

#4 Horizons

• Avoid horizons that are in the middle of your frame (*exception includes when you are looking for reflections and/or symmetry)
• To emphasize the sky – place your horizon low
• To emphasize land/water etc place your horizon high

#5 Angles

• Try another point of view……then try another one
• Walk around the subject and capture different points of view
• Get up high or get down low
• Find a great vantage point

Other tips throughout the night included getting started with proper exposure, advanced shooting techniques and much more.

Photo Credit: Natalie Taylor