composition

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Arrangement of type and/or art for printing. Composition may be a manual or computerized process. It includes all aspects of letter, word, and line spacing; line justification; indentation; hyphenation; type selection; and arrangement of all image elements on the page. See alsocold type; computerized composition; hot type.

noun

1. Something that is the result of creative effort: opus, piece, production, work. See make/unmake.
2. A relatively brief discourse written especially as an exercise: essay, paper, theme. See words.
3. A settlement of differences through mutual concession: accommodation, arrangement, compromise, give-and-take, medium, settlement. See agree/disagree.

Good composition in photography may best be defined as the art of selection. In photography, it may best be defined as the art of selection. First, the photographer selects subject matter, viewpoint, and focal length. This allows him to arrange the chosen picture elements in a pleasing group; to emphasize what is important; and to minimize what is not wanted. Further selection (or emphasis) may be effected by choice of weather conditions; time of day; time of year; focus; filtration; and even materials (high or low contrast or colour saturation).

After shooting, contrast and colour saturation may again be varied, and parts of the image may be selectively lightened or darkened in printing. Beyond this, there are physical cut-and-paste, cropping, airbrush work, and electronic retouching.

To a great photographer, composition is almost instinctive, but those without great natural talent can improve immensely through practice and study. The once-hallowed ‘Rules of Composition’, described below, are worthless if followed blindly but nevertheless provide a useful means of analysis; can be a fall-back position when all else fails; and are an orthodoxy against which to rebel. The principal ‘Rules’ are as follows:

• Focal point. Every picture should have a natural first resting point for the eye. This is often the principal subject but may equally be (for example) a wheelbarrow in a garden, where the garden is the real subject.
• Rule of thirds. Mentally divide the picture into equal thirds, both vertically and horizontally, with two lines in each direction. The ‘focal point’ of the picture (see above) should be on the intersection of one pair of lines (‘on the thirds’).
• Format or orientation. ‘Portrait’ (vertical) formats convey loftiness, aspiration, height, the ineffable. ‘Landscape’ (horizontal) formats convey peace, stability, the long enduring.
• Line. Dominant vertical lines within a picture carry the same freight as ‘portrait’ formats; dominant horizontal lines, the same as ‘landscape’. Diagonal lines, as in many propaganda and advertising images, add dynamism and energy. Curved lines are supposedly easier on the eye than straight: hence the famous ‘S-curve’ of the early 20th-century pictorialists.
• Tonal mass. The principal tonal masses in a photograph (whether light against dark, or dark against light) should hang together in coherent shapes, rather than being dotted at random across the picture.
• Accent. Small areas or ‘accents’ of very light or very dark tone can ‘lift’ a photograph which might otherwise look flat, dull, or muddy.
• Balance. Where the tonal masses are all to one side of the picture, it will look unbalanced. A small counterbalancing tonal mass, towards the other side, normally improves the composition.
• Pattern or compositional shape. The human eye (or rather, brain) tends to group together the main elements of the picture. This is as true of broad tonal masses as of the faces in a group portrait. Each pattern—line, circle, oval, spiral, square, rectangle, triangle—has its own emotional connotations. The triangle is especially interesting, as it may rest on its base (a ‘stable’ composition) or on its tip (‘unstable’). The avoidance of pattern may be as important as its use, if irrelevant picture elements are not to be given undue prominence.
• Leading the eye. A road, a river, a furrow, a garden path: anything can be used to ‘lead the eye’, which will follow the line to its end—where there should be a point of interest, preferably ‘on the thirds’ as described above.
• Concentration of interest. Something large normally attracts more attention than something small; something sharp, more attention than something soft or out of focus; something bright against a dark background, or dark against a bright background, more attention than something against a background of similar tone.
• Tonality. Harsh tonality creates one effect (and emphasizes broad tonal masses against detail), while subtle tonality, with a long, almost liquid transition from light to dark, creates quite a different impression.
• Colour. Harmonious colours are tranquil; contrasting colours, whether complementary or merely dissonant, may either attract attention or add energy (or both), depending on how they are used. Furthermore, ‘natural’ colours (those occurring in nature, or those that look to the eye like a normal scene) are more tranquil and attract less attention than ‘unnatural’ colours, such as fluorescent hues or colours that are far more saturated than they appear in real life.

Study of the work of any one great photographer will reveal that all the above generalizations are dangerous. But, equally, study of the work of numerous photographers, great or not, will reveal that pictures which obey the ‘Rules’ and guidelines above are more often successful than pictures which do not.

— Roger W. HicksRoger W. Hicks

Bibliography

• Feininger, A., A Manual of Advanced Photography (rev. edn. 1970)

LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!

• Painting Tools and Techniques - composition: aesthetically pleasing, harmonious, and effective arrangement of parts to form whole
• Types of Music and Composition - composition: any written piece of music, esp. one of scope and complexity
• Harmony, Melody, and Structure - composition: art and practice of writing pieces of music
• Printing and Typefaces - composition: typesetting

Look up compose, composed, composited, or composition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Composition may refer to:

• Composition (logical fallacy), in which one assumes that a whole has a property solely because its various parts have that property
• Compounding is also known as composition in linguistic literature
• in computer science
  • Object composition, combining simpler data types into more complex data types, or function calls into calling functions
  • Function composition (computer science), an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones
  • Compositing window manager a component of a computer's graphical user interface that draws windows and/or their borders
• in mathematics
  • Composition (number theory), a way of writing a positive integer as a sum of positive integers
  • Function composition, an operation that takes functions and gives a single function as the result
  • Relation composition, an operation that takes relations and gives a single relation as the result
  • A law of composition, usually called a binary function
• in the arts
  • Composition (visual arts), the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work
  • Composition roller, cast from a hide glue and molasses used in brayers and inking rollers for letterpress and other relief printing
  • Composition (language), in literature, oratory, and rhetoric, producing a work of spoken tradition or written literature
  • Musical composition, an original piece of music and its creation
  • Composition studies, the professional field of writing instruction
  • Dance composition, practice and teaching of choreography
  • Digital compositing, the practice of digitally piecing together a video
  • Composition doll, a doll made of a wood based composite material
• in chemistry
  • Compositional information, which is different than sequential information. See Gard model.

See also

• Early Germanic law, concerning the use of the term composition, or making a payment instead of receiving a punishment. With reference to the modern period, see Ausgleich, also called the Composition of 1867.
• Compose key, a key on a computer keyboard

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - komposition, blanding, fristil, karakter, sats, forlig, akkord

Nederlands (Dutch)
samenstelling, compositie, kunstwerk, opstel, schikking, akkoord

Français (French)
n. - composition, (Mus, littér) composition, (École) rédaction, (Imprim) composition, (Art) composition, (Jur) accommodement

Deutsch (German)
n. - Aufsatz, Aufbau, Verfassen, Abfassen, Komponieren, Komposition, Kompositionslehre, Vergleich

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (μουσική κ.λπ.) σύνθεση, έκθεση ιδεών, σύσταση, συγκρότηση, (οικον., νομ.) συμβιβασμός, (τυπογρ.) στοιχειοθεσία

Italiano (Italian)
composizione, costituzione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - composição (f), constituição (f), acordo (m), mistura (f) (Jur.), redação (f)

Русский (Russian)
сочинение, состав, композиция

Español (Spanish)
n. - composición, constitución, obra musical

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - komposition (mus.), komposition (mål.), komposition, uppsatsskrivning, sättning (boktr.), sammansättning

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
写作, 作品, 作曲, 作文

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 寫作, 作品, 作曲, 作文

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 구성 , 기질, 작문 및 작곡

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 構成, 植字, 構成内容, 配合, 作文, 構成物, 混合物, 模造品, 気質, 作曲, 和解, 構造, 作品

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) تركيب, تكوين, انشاء, مقطوعه موسيقيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮יצירה, חיבור, קומפוזיציה, תערובת, הרכב, מיצור, הלחנה‬

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