Improving composition in photography: Learning To See Creatively

Honestly, I’m not much of a book person but for the sake of improving my photography, I went online to search for books specifically on composition. My photos are generally lacking in composition. They are boring and look like any ordinary snapshots.

I’ve seen and bought a number of books on photography which are mostly similar. How to use your camera, what is DoF (Depth of Field), what is shutter speed etc… Fairly standard and boring topics. That is why this book is so refreshing: Learning To See Creatively by Bryan Peterson.

Why do other people’s photograph stand out more than mine? The main reason is composition. Composition can turn a photo from “Oh, that’s nice…” to a “Wow! How did you do that?”. Bryan guides and shows you how to train your vision and “see creatively”. There are many photos and comparison to guide you throughout the book and helps to visualize what Bryan is explaining throughout the book.

There are also plenty of engaging exercises including getting down on your knees and belly to view the world differently. It can be daunting at first, especially if you’re like me. I hate it when everyone is looking at me kneeling down to take a photograph. You can review your photos after the exercises and understand the different ways of “seeing”.

After a number of same old photography books, I am quite reluctant to spend more money on books. I’d rather save them for my dream Nikkor lens 17-35 f/2.8. So I borrowed a copy of the book from my local library, you should do the same too. After only halfway through it, I decided that I want my own copy for keeps. It’s only $16.47 from Amazon! How could I resist?!