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everythingbutthecat · 6 years

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The Suicidal Elephant in the Parlour or Anne of Green Gables and Depression, Loss, & Suicide

by Adrianna Prosser

It’s no secret I’m a redhead, and it’s likely no surprise that when I was young I pretended I was Anne of Green Gables. In fact, my first best friend from junior kindergarten was a raven haired girl that I nicknamed Diana (hi Erin!) and she in turn called me Anne. When I was 14 I played Anne in my regional community theatre show in the musical (see community newspaper photo below) and it caused quite a stir: the theatre sweetheart who was supposed to play Anne with her beau as Gilbert was thwarted by me, an awkward untrained teenager who already knew the libretto by heart and I owned a straw hat. That show defined my love for theatre and my love of Anne transformed into a love of performing and storytelling. Anne was my life. Anne was me. From her temper to her bombastic nature, her hyperbolic narratives and of course her wild imagination, and let us not forget her competitive nature at school was all playing out pretty much the exact same way only in 1980s Canada in Barrie, instead of PEI in the 1880s.

^1998 newspaper article photo with me and my “schoolmates” in Avonlea school for South Simcoe’s Anne of Green Gables musical production in Cookstown, Ontario.

Naturally I watched the Megan Follows series of Anne until the VHS tapes wilted and wouldn’t play in my VCR. I used the musical version as my audition songs to get into theatre school and plays. I even grew up to be a schoolhouse teacher in a 1910 museum where I involuntarily (ok ok I did it on purpose) looked like Anne in Anne of Avonlea when she gives up her scholarship to stay with Marilla and teaches at the nearby school. I made time in my curriculum to read aloud from Anne of Green Gables the infamous chapter “Tempest in the School Teapot” to my grade 3’s and did voices for Diana, Anne, Gilbert and Mr Andrews; the crack on the head was always the best part played by the schoolhouse strap and a quick thwack to an antique desk. The kids would jump and laugh and want me to read more - what happened to Anne with an e?

Anne has been a big part of my life since I was 5 years old.

Then the CBC casts RH Thompson as Matthew and all of a sudden I’m back in Avonlea with earnest dread: what are they doing to Anne? I hear mixed reviews, I can’t seem to make myself watch it. It has been years since I have shed tears for the reveal of LM Montgomery’s secret: her granddaughter went public to say that Lucy had died by suicide. There was a note in her journal that seemed to indicate as much. I haven’t grieve the author of my youth, but now with this new rendition coming to TV I was going to have to face much more than childhood memories.

The CBC version called Anne The Series is wonderful: the vistas, the costumes, the character work… but there is something hard and dark around the edges. Gone are the warm hues, the bright scenery, the soft focus - this version has the contrast up, the grit and clarity filter showing weathering and wrinkles, and blues and greys highlight most every scene. I am intrigued to see some scenes play out exactly as I remember, and then others make me weep.

I enjoy adaptations, I am an actor and playwright and have read and performed several Shakespearean renditions of the same title over and over again in different ways throughout my career. I get it. Why do the exact same thing when it’s been done before? My thoughts and feelings are that of someone who GETS IT. I liked that in 2017 when this version premiered, we have such days celebrating mental health and focusing on mental illness like #MentalHealthWeek or #BellLetsTalk or suicide prevention day is September 10th and we as a collective here in Canada are getting better at being mental health advocates and de-stigmatizing depression, therapy, suicide and mental illnesses to the point that we are able to talk about it in pop culture (ie. 13 Reasons Why, The Virgin Suicides, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, etc…) and we are left to unpack it at our own pace and level of understanding as an audience member. So when this Anne adaptation starts to inject Lucy Maud Montgomery’s narrative into Anne’s I feel two things:

OF COURSE now we can talk about this! Now we can interpret the reasons why Anne was talking to her reflection in a glass window and named her mirrored self Katie and talked to herself like as if she was two people - THAT isn’t normal. They could be dissociative disorder and throughout the show we see ways in which Anne has dealt with trauma, loss, and the loss of her innocence (though I don’t think rape was implied she has heard and or seen sex and possibly witnessed rape in this adaptation,) at such a young age that of course she needs imaginary friends to help her deal with her situation, or even just the profound loneliness she lives. OF COURSE there would be residual PTSD moments that leave Anne riddled with inaction and mental scarring hearing from every person that she is not a person but a tool to keep the household running and forced to care for three sets of triplets; being told all the while that she is not a family member and reminded of it constantly. OF COURSE we should raise awareness of the things that were happening in Canada around this time like the beginnings of the Suffragettes and women’s rights activism, and of course we should inject that history into a retelling where we as a viewing audience can accept that lens showing us a bit beyond the warm fuzzy historical narrative we are used to.

BUT. And it’s a but I am still struggling with… When the show paints a portrait outside of what’s in the book and rewrites the scope of its characters ambitions and actions - I get mad. And I don’t know why. The specific scene I’m talking about is when Matthew, brilliantly portrayed by RH Thompson (of Road to Avonlea fame,) Here is the show and the book version:

Having re-read all of Anne of Green Gables to see where the artistic liberties by Walley-Beckett for the CBC version (she wrote on Breaking Bad and I joke that this is Breaking Anne,) are and where the book informs the adaptation. (I wanted to know if Marilla and Matthew had been given made-up backstories or if they were indeed in book *fun fact Marilla WAS courted by John Blythe, but the Jeanie button story, though adorable, never happens for Matthew as we are constantly reminded in the book of how shy he is to women, Anne being the only exception.) And of course the suicide scene was never in my recollection but I had to be sure that as a child I wasn’t just misunderstanding LM Montgomery’s intentions.

This is where my very biased opinion takes the milk crate:

Matthew Cuthbert from the novel never exhibited depression, suicidal attempts, nor “invitations”. When I say invitations I mean the signs that one may perceive as invitations to recognize inner thoughts and feelings to be that of a suicidal nature. And the show version of Matthew also does not exhibit these invitations. But that is not to say that impulsive suicides don’t exist, just that they are very very rare. Also, in Christian Victorian society they are DOUBLY rare. So to, speaking to his character (in both book and show version) do I question Walley-Beckett and her exploitative use of suicide in this narrative - it seems wildly out of character and ridiculous.

It seemed the choice was made for ratings and getting fangirls like me bawk at this rendition and give buzz to the show rather than playing into the original story’s nuance - like how I applaud her use of mental illness in Anne and that is why she is the “gypsy witch” that everyone calls her in the book: it is why she isn’t like everyone else on the island because everyone else on the island hasn’t been abused like Anne has. The stigma of being an orphan is explored and highlighted with the picnic scene in the show that doesn’t happen in the book. Anne has to triumph over her snobby neighbours not once like in the book (she saves Diana’s sister from croup) but defies a RAGING HOUSE FIRE in the show at the Gillis homestead to save a child and help put out the fire (a nod to her reading everything under the sun even a fire fighting manual at the train station, a call back to the first episode).

Sure. I like the in-between the lines bits like that. In fact upon re-reading it a lot of the action doesn’t take place on the page, it is usually recounted to us by our grand storyteller Anne herself, so the events are wide open to interpretation because often LM Montgomery says ‘and the concert happened’ or ‘and the school year passed’ and that’s it. My friend JM Frey writes how "Anne is an unreliable narrator.” and I agree.

But, what I can’t handle is imposing trendy topics into a show that is near and dear to many a Canadian heart for the sake of ratings. I thought it a bit odd how blunt the feminist sewing circle was. Not in the book by the way but huzzah for modern narratives and exploring what that gossip and chit-chat would be at Mrs. Lynde’s sewing bees (in the book it’s her gatherings). And clearly what spurned this whole blog-novel is the suicidal elephant in the parlour...

Then the other side of my heart believes this is a good thing, this new Matthew who is depressed because he is getting older and can’t “spare himself a mite” and then his reluctance to listen to his sister leads to them losing all their money. He has the same symptoms of the men who jumped from the ledge of their workplace in the Great Depression. Guilt. Blame. Loss of hope. Burden. And being the sole provider, or being told that one is by culture and society, he is overwhelmed and not only that he is weak in body so he can’t fight as hard as he used to… is suicide so unheard of for our dear Matthew? Many a Christian soul has taken their own lives. Many a Victorian had too, so too our dear writer LM Montgomery is believed to have taken her own life just outside of Toronto proper at the house she nicknamed “Journey’s End.”

While I cannot deny my anger and resentment and frustration with this new rendition of Anne of Green Gables I am reminded that the original still lays intact on my bookshelf and I can re-read it anytime. That maybe this new Anne is taking characters we have invested our love and time with for over a century and that perhaps this unsettling feeling that Matthew would try to take his life is the exact hurt we need to feel to address the suicidal elephant in our own lives.

When my brother died by suicide I was, am, beside myself with questions, guilt, blame, and looking for reasons. This scene made me react in a similar visceral way, to be sure because I am suicide bereaved, but also I had a pre-existing connection with Matthew since I was 5 years old! Matthew is a fictional character and I am not equating him with my real life brother, but I can’t deny that the way this rendition of the story being told rattled me to the core, and I don’t think it would have elicited the same response with a new tv show about a teenage girl with a distraught father figure who attempts suicide after a huge money loss. My love and time wouldn’t be as invested, and so using a beloved cultural phenomenon like Anne to share these themes, and with a main character no less, seems…. bold. And perfectly infuriating for the right reasons.

So while I digest all these feelings I am resolved to let them stay in this area of grey. The show isn’t wrong and the book isn’t right, or vice versa. What I can take away with certainty that I am glad LM Montgomery’s work is being appreciated all over again, along with her new Heritage Minute

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^which not only focuses on her talented writing, but that she wrote such an epic while struggling with depression. That message that you can still create and create great things while depressed is a message we need to hear and celebrate. We also need to own that some people are suicidal and we all need to step up our efforts to help our loved ones around us know that they can talk about it, seek help without judgement, and lean on us. There is no need to read between the lines like we are here with Anne, and we can ask our friends and family directly for help when we too have thoughts and feelings that make us want to end our lives.

“It was the last night before sorrow touched her life, and no life is ever quite the same again once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it.” -LM Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Chapter 36 “The Glory and the Dream”

Thank you Anne for once again growing up with me and helping me understand my thoughts and feelings a bit better.

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peterguralnick · 7 years

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Roe Erister (Rick) Hall, 1932-2018

photo by Jacob Blickenstaff http://www.33-13.com/

Rick Hall may have been the most determined (some might say stubborn, Rick might even have owned up to bull-headed) man I ever met.

The first time I met him, I almost didn’t meet him at all.

Jimmy Johnson was the vehicle for my initial introduction in 1981. Jimmy was the guitarist with the second rhythm section at Rick’s FAME studios in Muscle Shoals (all of his rhythm sections were brilliant, this one was perhaps his most brilliant), and there had been a falling out when he and fellow members David Hood, Barry Beckett, and Roger Hawkins had decamped in 1969 to set up their own studio, Muscle Shoals Sound, in direct competition with FAME. There had been bad blood for a while, but everyone survived and thrived, and Jimmy, as affable a figure as you’re ever likely to meet in or out of the music business, had long since re-established a good, almost filial relationship with Rick.

I was just starting out on my book, Sweet Soul Music, at the time. Songwriter Donnie Fritts, a Florence native (Florence and Muscle Shoals are two of the area’s Quad-Cities), had introduced me to nearly everyone in Muscle Shoals except for Rick the year before, and now Jimmy took it upon himself to approach Rick on my behalf. Rick, Jimmy reported back to me, would be glad to do it – but when I arrived in town a few weeks later, all of a sudden, don’t ask me why, all bets were off.

This was something I could certainly live with (it was not an uncommon occurrence – very few of the people I was talking with had done interviews before, and, this may come as a shock, but not everyone is thrilled to be interviewed) – I could wait, I told Jimmy, it wasn’t the end of the world. Jimmy, however, was stricken. He saw it as a matter of honor, and he called Rick right away from his office. “I gave the man my word,” he told Rick, while I was sitting there. “You know, we’ve been friends a long time, Rick, but you gave me your word, and I gave Peter my word, and if you don’t stick by it, we’re not going to be friends anymore.”

I was more than a little mortified (and more than a little touched by Jimmy’s loyalty), but after hanging around Muscle Shoals for a few more days without hearing from Rick, I set off for Macon to talk with Phil and Alan Walden, and Otis Redding ‘s brother Rodgers, and his wife, Zelda, along with various friends and associates of Otis’.

That was where I got the call from Rick, on December 2, 1981, a Wednesday. He was, he said, willing to see me. Great! I said. When? Tomorrow, he said. I laughed, I’m going to imagine it was a kind of heh-heh-heh. Well, I’m in Macon, I said, and I’m sure I could make it by – Tomorrow, he said, making it clear by the tone of his voice that any modification was out of the question. At 7AM, he said. At my ranch.

Now Macon is at least a five-hour drive from Muscle Shoals, and it was already late afternoon, but I didn’t hesitate – and I’d like to think I still wouldn’t. (I mean, you do anything at the service of your story, right?) 7 AM tomorrow, great! I said. And I wrote down Rick’s very specific directions to the ranch (“43 South from Littleville, one mile on the right-hand side of the road, Kennedy Road 18”) on my hotel stationery.

I arrived at 7 o’clock sharp the next day, with my notebook and brand-new Sony stereo cassette recorder TCS-310 in hand. I started out, as you often do, by asking some generalized, conversational questions, just to try to establish a little rapport, but I knew immediately I had gotten off on the wrong foot just by the way Rick was shaking his head. This was clearly not the way to begin. “Well, let me start at an earlier point of my life [which turned out to be his birth],” he declared without hesitation, “and tell you what happened to me.” And he did. Four or five hours later he was still telling me, and I was exhausted. I hadn’t gotten into the Holiday Inn in Sheffield until late the previous night, and I left for Rick’s home earlier than I needed to because I knew if I didn’t make that 7 o’clock deadline, the whole thing could be off. Finally I held up my hand for the first and I think only time in my life and said, in effect, No mas. But we would go on talking, in what would eventually turn into a two-way conversation, for the next 35 years.

Read Rick’s book, Rick Hall: My Journey from Shame to Fame. Or try Sweet Soul Music for an abbreviated version of the story of a boy who grew up in the “deep sprawling, isolated woods of the Freedom Hills with the whiskey makers and whiskey runners and saw millers,” raised by a father who could barely eke out a living (“he was a pauper”), after his mother left, when he was four, to become a prostitute in his Aunt Es’s house of ill fame in the city. In all the years I’ve known Rick and his wife, Linda (the home that I visited has since become the FAME Girls Ranch, dedicated to help victims of abuse and neglect “overcome the adversity they have endured”), the conversation has never changed. In fact, it was renewed and deepened in the ten years that he worked on the book, first with Florence TimesDaily reporter Terry Pace, then with Robert Gordon. He wanted it to be raw, he said, something like a cross between Tobacco Road and Harry Crews, whose work he (like many of us) was introduced to by Atlantic Records head Jerry Wexler, a genuine polymath whom Rick alternately resented (their business relationship came to an end with Aretha Franklin’s disastrous 1967 Muscle Shoals session, and Jerry was the one who encouraged the second rhythm section to leave) and, more often than not admired.

The last time I saw Rick (though we always continued to speak on the phone) was about a year ago, when Rick was awarded an honorary degree by the University of North Alabama in Florence, and I was scheduled to give the commencement speech. He was already sick, although he wasn’t publicly acknowledging it, but he was in buoyant spirits, with an undiminished determination to continue to make his mark. There was a dinner the night before graduation at the president’s house, next to the lions’ cage (“Go lions,” is the university motto), where Rick exchanged fond reminiscences with old friends, none more fond than with State Representative Johnny Mack Morrow, whose father, Grover, taught Rick agriculture at Phil Campbell High School and gave Rick his first instrument, a mandolin. Rick always kept a picture of Mr. Morrow on his desk, on which he had written, “To the man who believed in me and my music when nobody did.”

The next day, in Rick’s name, and in the name of Sam Phillips, Rick’s original role model (and a native Florentine), I urged the graduates of the Colleges of Nursing and Arts and Sciences and Business and Education to hold on to their individuality, to identify and seize upon their dreams, not to let themselves get pushed around by disappointment or others’ expectations of them. And I cited how Rick, after a particularly devastating blow to his ego early on (he was fired by his partners from the musical enterprise that became FAME – it’s a long story, you’ll just have to read about it elsewhere), never gave up, barely even wavered. “I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” Rick said. “It was like they’d put the roller skates under me and pushed me out the door.” But, I told the graduates, he was determined not to be left on the shelf for long. As he described it, “I just went home to Phil Campbell to lick my wounds – but then after a few months I took kind of an arrogant attitude and dug in for the kill.” And the next time twenty-year-old songwriter Dan Penn, who was part of the firing cabal, saw him, Dan said, “He was standing on this concrete slab he’d just poured for the studio that now stands, and he said, ‘Hey Penn, why don’t you come over here and go to work for me.’”

That was Rick, to the end. It didn’t always make for smooth sailing – and there were, unquestionably, lots of ruffled feelings along the way – but you never had any doubt about where Rick stood. And you never had any doubt that he had a good heart.

He was the furthest thing from the back-slapping, easy-going caricature of a good ol’ boy – I mean, Rick was driven from the start. “I was so very aggressive and fired up at the beginning,” he told me, trying to explain why he got ousted by his friends. “I was the guy who was beating and banging and slinging sweat over everybody else, and it got to the point where they thought, This guy’s crazy! Because, you know, IT WAS LIFE TO ME.” It was not lost on him that the ferocity of his determination could overwhelm everyone around him sometimes, but in the end, I think, it was the lingering self-doubt, the crippling insecurity of a young boy who grew up lonely, impoverished, motherless in the Freedom Hills of rural Mississippi and Alabama, that proved to be his saving grace. As much as anything else, I would imagine, that was the innate quality that allowed him to focus on the improbable hopes and dreams of all those artists and musicians, black and white, who found their way to the studio he built with his own hands in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

The enhanced e-book of Sweet Soul Music includes this short video piece with Rick. Available at iBooks: http://bit.ly/ssmusicee or Amazon: http://a.co/iwiMZC9

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#Rick Hall #Sweet Soul Music #Muscle Shoals

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soccerdrawings · 5 years

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invizblog · 7 years

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COMPOSITION IN PHOTOGRAPHY

GUIDE TO COMPOSITION IN PHOTOGRAPHY – 20 TIPS

BARRY O CARROLL - http://www.bocphotography.com

INVIZ note: (This is a great guide for 3d artists trying to understand photographers approach to handling composition, composition is key to good architectural visualisation)

Improve your photographic composition by following these guidelines.

There are no unbreakable rules when it comes to how you should compose your photographs After all, who likes rules except for your old school principal or heads of H.R. departments? There are however, several guidelines you can use to help improve the composition of your photos. In this tutorial, I’ve listed 20 of these guidelines along with examples of each. I’ve started with the most basic ones and finished with some of the more advanced composition techniques.

First of all we have to define what is meant by ‘composition’. Composition refers to the way the various elements in a scene are arranged within the frame. As I’ve already mentioned, these are not hard and fast rules but guidelines. That said, many of them have been used in art for thousands of years and they really do help achieve more attractive compositions. I find that I usually have one or more of these guidelines in the back of my mind as I’m setting up a shot.

We’ll start with probably the most well known composition technique: The Rule of Thirds.

1. Rule of Thirds

So I’ve just told you that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to composition and then the first thing I write about is the ‘rule’ of thirds. In my defence, I didn’t come up with the name. The rule of thirds is very simple. You divide the frame into 9 equal rectangles, 3 across and 3 down as illustrated below. Many camera manufacturers have actually included the capability to display this grid in live view mode. Check your camera’s manual to see how to turn on this feature.

The idea is to place the important element(s) of the scene along one or more of the lines or where the lines intersect. We have a natural tendency to want to place the main subject in the middle. Placing it off centre using the rule of thirds will more often than not lead to a more attractive composition.

In this photo, I’ve placed the horizon roughly along the bottom third of the frame and the biggest and closest trees along the line to the right. The photo wouldn’t have the same impact if the larger trees had been placed in the centre of the frame.

In this photo of the Old Town Square in Prague, I’ve placed the horizon along the top third of the frame. Most of the buildings sit in the middle third and the square itself occupies the bottom third of the frame. The spires of the church are placed near horizontal line to the right of the frame.

2. Centred Composition and Symmetry

Now that I’ve told you not to place the main subject in the centre of the frame, I’m going to tell you to do the exact opposite! There are times when placing a subject in the centre of the frame works really well. Symmetrical scenes are perfect for a centred composition. They look really well in square frames too.

This photo of the Ha’penny Bridge in my home city of Dublin was the perfect candidate for a centred composition. Architecture and roads often make great subjects for a centred compositions.

Scenes containing reflections are also a great opportunity to use symmetry in your composition. In this photo, I’ve actually used a mix of the rule of thirds and symmetry to compose the scene. The tree is positioned off centre to the right of the frame but the perfectly still water of the lake provides the symmetry. You can often combine several composition guidelines in a single photograph.

3. Foreground Interest and Depth

Including some foreground interest in a scene is a great way of adding a sense of depth to the scene. Photographs are 2D by nature. Including foreground interest in the frame is one of a number of techniques to give the scene a more 3D feel.

In this photograph of a waterfall in The Netherlands, the rocks in the river provided a perfect source of foreground interest. Adding foreground interest works particularly well with wide angle lenses.

I took this photograph in the Dublin Docklands. The dock cleats along the quay provided the foreground interest in this shot. I think it adds a real sense of depth to the composition. The dock cleat in this scene was only a few metres in front of me when I took this shot. Including it in the frame portrays a sense of depth in the scene by including an element that I was quite close to as well as the bridge and buildings in the distance and everything in between them.

A friend who was with me that evening tripped over one of the cleats and almost ended up getting a very close up view of the River Liffey. That’s one way of adding depth to the scene I guess.

4. Frame within the Frame

Including a ‘frame withing the frame’ is another effective way of portraying depth in a scene. Look for elements such as windows, arches or overhanging branches to frame the scene with. The ‘frame’ does not necessarily have to surround the entire scene to be effective.

In the photo on the right taken on St Mark’s Square in Venice, I used the archway to frame St Marks Basilica and the Campanile at the far end of the piazza. The use of scenery viewed through arches was a common feature of Renaissance painting as way of portraying depth. As you can see, the square was completely empty when I took the shot. This is one of the benefits of getting up at 5am. Early morning is one of my favourite times to get out and about with the camera.

Frames don’t have to be man made objects such as arches or windows. The photo below was taken in County Kildare in Ireland. This time, I used the tree trunk to the right and the overhanging branch to create a frame around the scene containing the bridge and boat house. Notice that even though the ‘frame’ doesn’t actually surround the whole scene in this case, it still adds a sense of depth.

Using a ‘frame within a frame’ presents a great opportunity to use your surroundings to be creative in your compositions

5. Leading Lines

Leading lines help lead the viewer through the image and focus attention on important elements. Anything from paths, walls or patterns can be used as leading lines. Take a look at the examples below.

In this photo of the Eiffel Tower, I used the patterns on the paving stones as leading lines. The lines on the ground all lead the viewer to the Eiffel Tower in the distance. You’ll also notice that I used a centred composition for this scene. The symmetry of my surroundings made this type of composition work well.

Leading lines do not necessarily have to be straight as illustrated by the picture above. In fact curved lines can be very attractive compositional features. In this case, the path leads the viewer to the right of the frame before swinging in to the left towards the tree. I also made use of the rule of thirds when composing the shot.

6. Diagonals and Triangles

It is often said that triangles and diagonals add ‘dynamic tension’ to a photo. My mother in law also does an excellent job of adding tension to any scene. What do we mean by ‘dynamic tension’ though? This can be a tricky one to explain and can seem a bit pretentious. Look at it this way, horizontal lines and vertical lines suggest stability. If you see a person standing on a level horizontal surface, he will appear to be pretty stable unless he’s stumbling out of a pub at 2am. Put this man on a sloping surface and he’ll seem less stable. This creates a certain level of tension visually. We are not so used to diagonals in our every day life. They subconsciously suggest instability. Incorporating triangles and diagonals into our photos can help create this sense of ‘dynamic tension’.

Incorporating triangles into a scene is a particularly good effective way of introducing dynamic tension. Triangles can be actual triangle shaped objects or implied triangles. I’ll explain this in more detail in a moment.

This picture of the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin incorporates plenty of triangles and diagonals into the scene. The bridge itself is an actual triangle (It’s actually supposed to represent a Celtic Harp on its side). There are also several ‘implied’ triangles in the scene. Notice how the leading lines on the right of the frame are all diagonal and form triangles that all meet at the same point. These are ‘implied triangles’. Having diagonals going off in different direction adds a lot of ‘dynamic tension’ to the scene. Once again you can see how I have combined two techniques to compose the image: leading lines and diagonals.

In this photo of the Hotel de Ville in Paris, the implied triangles and diagonals create sense of dynamic tension. We are not used to seeing buildings leaning at such angles in our everyday life. It is slightly jarring to our sense of balance. This is what creates the visual tension. You can also talk about dynamic tension to sound intelligent (or annoyingly pretentious) in front of your friends.

7. Patterns and Textures

Human beings are naturally attracted to patterns. They are visually attractive and suggest harmony. Patterns can be man made like a series of arches or natural like the petals on a flower. Incorporating patterns into your photographs is always a good way to create a pleasing composition. Less regular textures can also be very pleasing on the eye.

The two photos above were both taken in Tunisia. In the one on the left, I’ve used the pattern in the paving stones to lead the eye to the domed building. The building itself incorporates a pattern in the form of a series of arches. The domed roof also compliments the rounded arches below.

In the second photo, I really liked the texture of the stone work on the ground. This is less regular than the pattern in the first photo but the play of light and shadow on the surface is very pleasant. There are also interesting textures to be on the walls and roof of the passage. You may also have noticed that the arch creates a ‘frame within a frame’ around the man and cafe on the other side of the archway.

8. Rule of Odds

In the world of photography, there are certainly plenty of ‘odds’ but the ‘rule of odds’ is something different entirely. The rule suggests that an image is more visually appealing if there are an odd number of subjects. The theory proposes that an even number of elements in a scene is distracting as the viewer is not sure which one to focus his or her attention on. An odd number of elements is seen as more natural and easier on the eye. To be honest, I think there are plenty of cases where this is not the case but it is certainly applicable in certain situations. What if you have four children? How do you decide which one to leave out of the shot? Personally, I’d go by future earning potential.

The photo above is an example of the rule of odds. I deliberately framed the scene to include three arches. I think that two arches would not have worked as well and may have divided the viewers attention. It also so happened that there were three people in the scene. This composition also makes use of patterns and ‘frames within a frame’.

In the photo of two gondoliers in Venice above, you will see that I’ve completely ignored the rule of odds. It is true that your attention may shift back and forth between each gondolier. However this is exactly what a conversation between two people is like, a back and forth. For this reason, I think the even number of subjects works in this case.

9. Fill the Frame

Filling the frame with your subject, leaving little or no space around it can be very effective in certain situations. It helps focus the viewer completely on the main subject without any distractions. It also allows the viewer to explore the detail of the subject that wouldn’t be possible if photographed from further away. Filling the frame often involves getting in so close that you may actually crop out elements of your subject. In many cases, this can lead to a very original and interesting composition.

In the photo of my pet cat on the left, you you’ll notice that I filled the frame completely with his face, even cropping out the edges of his head and mane. This allows the viewer to really focus on details such as the eyes or the textures in his fur. You may also notice that I used the rule of thirds in this composition. He is a lovely pet but you should see the state of our furniture. He also loves children but he couldn’t eat a whole one.

In the second shot of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, I have left very little space around the edges of the building. the point of this photograph is to showcase the architectural detail of the front facade of the building.

10. Leave Negative Space

Once again, I am going to completely contradict myself! In the last guideline, I told you that filling the frame works well as a compositional tool. Now I’m going to tell you that doing the exact opposite works well too. Leaving a lot of empty or ‘negative’ space around your subject can be very attractive. It creates a sense of simplicity and minimalism. Like filling the frame, it helps the viewer focus on the main subject without distractions.

This photo of a giant statue of the Hindu god Shiva in Mauritius is a good example of using negative space. The statue is obviously the main subject but I have left plenty of space filled only by sky around it. This focuses our attention on the statue itself while giving the main subject ‘space to breath’ so to speak. The composition also creates a sense of simplicity. There is nothing complicated about the scene. It is the statue surrounded by sky, that is all. I also used the rule of thirds to place the statue to the right of the frame.

11. Simplicity and Minimalism

In the last guideline, we saw how leaving negative space around the main subject can create a sense of simplicity and minimalism. Simplicity itself can be a powerful compositional tool. It is often said that ‘less is more’. Simplicity often means taking photos with uncomplicated backgrounds that don’t distract from the main subject. You can also create a simple composition by zooming in on part of your subject and focusing on a particular detail.

In this first photo, I zoomed in on some water droplets on a leaf in a garden. It’s such a simple subject but is also very beautiful because of its simplicity. A good macro lens can be a very useful tool for creating these types of photos.

In the second photograph of a tree at dawn, I made use of a very simple and uncluttered background to focus attention on the tree. This photo makes use of ‘negative space’ to create a sense of simplicity and minimalism. I’ve also used the rule of thirds and leading lines in the composition.

12. Isolate the Subject

Using a shallow depth of field to isolate your subject is a very effective way of simplifying your composition. By using a wide aperture, you can blur the background that might otherwise distract from your main subject. This is a particularly useful technique for shooting portraits. You can learn more about how to use different aperture settings in my tutorial on Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.

In this photo of a cat hiding in a box, I set an aperture of f3.5 which is very wide and results in very blurred background. This focuses attention on the cat as the blurred background is now less distracting. This technique is an excellent way to simplify a composition. You may have noticed that I also used this technique to focus attention on the water droplets on the leaf in the last guideline.

13. Change your Point of View

Most photos are taken from eye level. In my case, that’s barely 5 feet! Getting high up or low down can be a way of creating a more interesting and original composition of a familiar subject. I’ve often seen wildlife photographers in particular lying in the mud on their bellies to get the perfect shot.

This shot of Paris at night was taken from the roof of the Montparnasse Tower in the 15th Arrondissement. Whenever I visit a city,I always try to see if there are any buildings with viewing platforms to allow to photograph the city from above. Getting high up gives you the chance to capture spectacular views of a city, especially at night.

Sometimes finding that perfect point of view means getting your feet wet. Above is a shot I took while standing in a stream in Ballyhoura, County Limerick, Ireland. I actually had to wait quite a while for a rain shower to pass and the sun to come back out. It was worth it though to get low down and capture the motion of the water as if flowed over the rocks. I needed several hot whiskeys after to warm myself back up though.

14. Look for Particular Colour Combinations

The use of colour itself is an often overlooked compositional tool. Colour theory is something that graphic designers, fashion designers and interior designers are all very familiar with. Certain colour combinations compliment each other well and can be visually very striking.

Take a look at the colour wheel to the right. You can see that the colours are arranged logically in the segments of a circle. Colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel are said to be ‘complimentary colours’. As photographers, we can look for scenes that incorporate complimentary colours as a way of creating attractive and striking compositions.

Have you ever noticed how many movie posters have blue and yellow/orange colour schemes? This is done quite deliberately to create eye catching adverts. Click here to see just how many famous movies use this colour scheme in their advertising posters.

I made use of the striking blue/yellow colour combination myself in this photograph of the Custom House in Dublin. The yellow hues of the illuminated building contrast beautifully with the deep blue of the blue hour sky.

Red and blue are also complimentary colours on the colour wheel. The Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre in Dublin was lit up red for Christmas last year. This was very striking against the deep blue of the early night sky. I love photographing cities during blue hour. The deep blue of the sky at this time a very attractive backdrop to the city architecture and lights. The pure black of the late night sky is not as striking and contrasts too sharply with the lights of the city.

15. Rule of Space

The rule of space relates to the direction the subject(s) in your photo are facing or moving towards. If you are taking a photo of a moving car for example, there should be more space left in the frame in front of the car than behind it. This implies that there is space in the frame for the car to move into. Take a look at the example of the boat below.

In this photo, the boat is placed on the left hand side of the frame as it moves from left to right. Notice how there is a lot more space for the boat to move into in front of its direction of motion (to the right) than behind it. We can mentally imagine the boat moving into this space as it sails along the river. We also have a subconscious tenancy to look forward to where an object is heading. If the boat was right up at the right hand side of the frame, this would lead us out of the photograph!

This can also be used for pictures of pictures of people. The rule of space suggests that the subject should be looking or facing into the frame rather than out of it. Take a look at the musician in the photo above. I composed the shot with him sitting on the left hand side of the frame. He is facing to the right (as we look at him) into the area of space between him and the right hand edge of the frame. If he had been facing the other way, he would be looking out of the frame and this would look odd. By looking into the space in the frame, he leads our eye past the man leaning on the railing and to the couple dancing on the right hand side.

16. Left to Right Rule

There is theory that says we ‘read’ an image from left to right in the same way we would read text. For this reason, it is suggested that any motion portrayed in a photograph should flow from left to right. This is all very well but it assumes the viewer is from a country were text is read from left to right. Many languages are read from right to left such as Arabic for example. To be honest, I’ve seen plenty of fantastic photographs that ‘flow’ from right to left.

I was once criticised by a judge for the fact that a woman in a photo I took was walking from right to left. He told me it didn’t follow the ‘left to right’ rule. I reminded the judge that the photo was taken in Tunisia where people read from right to left. I didn’t win.

The photo above follows the ‘left to right’ rule. The woman walking her dog in the Tuileries Garden in Paris is walking from the left to the right of the frame. This photo also adheres to the ‘rule of space’. You will notice that the there is much more space in front the woman than behind her. She has plenty of ‘space’ to walk into in the frame. I also used the rule of thirds and a ‘frame within a frame’ to compose this photograph.

17. Balance Elements in the Scene

The first compositional guideline we looked at in this this tutorial was the ‘rule of thirds’. This of course means that we often place the main subject of the photo to the side of the frame along one of the vertical grid lines. Sometimes this can lead to a lack of balance in the scene. It can leave a sort of ‘void’ in the rest of the frame.

To overcome this, you can compose your shot to include a secondary subject of lesser importance or size on the other side of the frame. This balances out the composition without taking too much focus off the main subject of the photograph.

Take a look at the photograph of the ornate lamppost on the Pont Alexandre III in Paris. The lamppost itself fills the left side of the frame. The Eiffel Tower in the distance counter balances this on the other side of the frame.

You may have remarked that this seems to go against the idea of negative space mentioned in guideline number 10. It also contradicts the ‘rule of odds’ as we now have an even number of elements in the scene. As I said at the very beginning of this tutorial, there are no unbreakable rules in photographic composition. Some of these guidelines contradict each other and that’s ok. Some guidelines work well for certain types of photographs and not others. It’s a question of judgement and experimentation.

The photo above was taken in Venice. Once again, a decorative lamppost dominates one side of the frame. The church tower in the distance provides balance on the other side of the frame.

This also has a secondary effect on the composition. The church tower in the distance is obviously much bigger than the lamppost in real life. It appears smaller in the photograph as it is far away. This helps add a sense of depth and scale to the scene.

18. Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is very powerful compositional tool in photography. Juxtaposition refers to the inclusion of two or more elements in a scene that can either contrast with each other or compliment each other. Both approaches can work very well and play an important part in enabling the photo to tell a story.

Take a look at this photo taken in Paris. In the bottom half of the frame, we have the slightly rough and ready book stands full of clutter and posters hanging from the tops. Rising above all of this however is the magnificent medieval Notre Dame Cathedral. This architectural gem is the epitome of order and structure unlike the unsophisticated but attractive book stalls below. They seem to be in direct contrast with each other yet they work well together. They both represent the city of Paris in different ways. They tell a story about two different elements of the city.

The photo above was also taken in France, but this time in the picturesque little village of Meyssac in the South West. In this shot, the old Citroen 2CV car looks perfectly at home in front of the typical French cafe in the background. The two elements compliment each other perfectly. The man with his back to us in the cafe is the owner of the car and he seemed surprised when I asked if it was ok to take a picture of his car. He asked why I’d ever want to take a photo of ‘that old thing’. He didn’t seem to realise that he had unwittingly set up a quintessentially French scene by parking in front of that particularly cafe.

19. Golden Triangles

Are you still with me? We’re almost there…. I promise. The golden triangles composition works in a very similar way to the rule of thirds. Instead of a grid of rectangles however, we divide the frame with a diagonal line going from one corner to another. We then add two more lines from the other corners to the diagonal line. The two smaller lines meet the big line at a right angle as is illustrated below. This divides the frame into a series of triangles. As you can see, this way of composing helps us introduce an element of the ‘dynamic tension’ we learned about in guideline number 6. As with the rule of thirds, we use the lines (of the triangles in this case) to help us position the various elements in the scene.

The photo above contains strong diagonals that follow the lines of the ‘golden triangles’. The light trails from the traffic perfectly follow the diagonal line running from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner. The tops of the buildings on the left are close to the smaller diagonal on the left. The small line on the right meets the larger line at the top corner of the buildings.

The photo above makes use of the ‘rule of triangles’ in a more subtle way. The heads of the statues create an ‘implied triangle’. This line leads us to the Eiffel Tower in the distance. The smaller line on the left meets the longer line right at the halfway point of the Eiffel Tower. The smaller line on the right goes right between the two statues. The rule of triangles can seem like a complex way of arranging a photo but it can result in some really striking compositions.

20. Golden Ratio

What is the golden ratio? Well it’s actually very simple: two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Wait, what now? Ok, if that sounds too complicated, perhaps this mathematical formula will help:

What do you mean you’re even more confused now?

It’s true that the golden ratio method of composing a photograph can seem very complex at first. In reality it’s quite simple. It’s like a slightly more complex version of the rule of thirds. Instead of a regular grid, the frame is divided into a series of squares as in the examples below. This is known as a ‘Phi Grid’. You can then use the squares to draw a spiral that looks like a snail’s shell. This is called a ‘Fibonacci Spiral’. The squares help to position elements in the scene and the spiral gives us an idea of how the scene should flow. It’s a little like an invisible leading line.

It is believed that the golden spiral method of composition has been in existence for over 2,400 years having been devised in Ancient Greece. It is widely used in many types of art as well as architecture as a way of creating aesthetically pleasing compositions. It was particularly well employed in Renaissance art.

Ok, I have to admit something here. I have never actually purposely set out to compose a photograph using the golden ratio. When I looked back through my photographs, I did notice that I had unintentionally used it a few times.

I took this photo in Venice. The bridge and steps on the left occupy the large square to the right. The Fibonacci Spiral then leads us from here across the top of the bridge and down to the two women sitting next to it. It may have been a lucky accident but it seems to work!

The golden ratio can be set up in different directions. In this photo taken in Prague, the spiral leads us across the bridge to the castle on the far bank. Another lucky accident!

Obviously, it would be impossible to have all of these compositional guidelines in your mind as you are out shooting. Your brain would melt! However, a good exercise is to make an effort to use one or two of them each time you go out. You could do a photo session where you look for situations to use a ‘frame within a frame’ for example.

After a while, you’ll find that a lot of these guidelines become ingrained. You will begin to use them naturally without having to think about them. As you can see from the golden ratio, I even used one of them without even realising it!

Another good exercise is to look at some of the photos in my galleries or any collection of photos and try to see if you can tell which compositional techniques have been used.

I hope you found this tutorial useful and that it will help you bring your photography to the next level.

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