Understanding the core elements of photography is essential. It's the elements of photographic composition that often take photos to the next level. These guidelines can improve many photographs, however, some of the best photos can break these rules. Also note, many of these guidelines can apply to the same photograph.

Focus and Depth of Field

Focus is the most important element of photography, but not everything in the photograph needs to be in focus. Depth of field refers to the part of the picture that is in focus. Using a shallow depth of field, f/2.8 or f/4 you can blur the things that are not important and highlight your subject. Using a deep depth of field, f/16 or f/22 creates a “deep zone” that allows more forgiveness with precision focusing. For more information on f-stops and aperture, see "Photography Basics".

Camera Orientation

The camera can be held in two ways to view a scene; landscape format (horizontal) or portrait format (vertical). Camera orientation affects what the photographer sees and shoots as a different emphasis is viewed, thus dynamics change. Picture shape should be dictated by the natural arrangement of the subject and elements being shot.

Stance or Angle of View

The perspective from which the photographer chooses to take a photograph is generally eye level (also called flat angle). This perspective can be a little boring to the viewer.

For a stronger composition, move up higher or get closer to the ground, or move far off to the side for a more unusual perspective. Think bird’s eye view and worm’s eye view. Shooting up at people can give you a whole new perspective. Alternatively, step on a chair or table to shoot down at what you want to capture. Shooting down at a group you can show much more of each person! By bringing the horizon low in the frame or shooting up at something, you can also get a dramatic effect.

Distance

Robert Capa (a 20th Century war photographer) commented, “If your pictures aren’t good, you aren’t close enough.” Strong images isolate the key part of the action or emotion for the audience and exclude extraneous elements from the frame. Cropping after shooting the image is a poor habit. Good photos are tightly cropped in-camera. It is important to attend to the scope of the scene e.g. a French horn player or a basketball player going up for a basket.

Balance and The Rule of Thirds

A basic guide for strong compositional structure in a photograph is the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds imagines each image being made up of a nine-square grid like a stretched tic-tac-toe box. Using the imagined lines and intersecting points on the grid as guides for placing key elements that makes up the composition. By thinking in rule of thirds attention is directed from “middle of frame” composition that can dismiss valuable emphasizing elements that can create additional impact.

Framing and Shapes

Framing is a tactic by which a photographer looks for and uses elements in the scene to frame the subject. This could be shooting through the legs of a chair or branches of a tree, making sure the subject is in tight focus. A natural frame within your picture can increase interest. Arches, both natural and manmade can be used to great effect especially when lighting conditions are optimized.

Using natural or coincidental shapes can also make photographs more interesting. Often the distorted shapes of athletes under strain will make great sports photographs or use interesting angles of view to create great shapes from simple objects.

Leading Lines

Leading lines lure the eye deeper into a picture or to an important subject. Straight, curved, parallel or diagonal lines are all good at promoting interest. Hallways, lockers, field striping, a finger pointed at someone or the way a group of people are looking are all leading lines. A leading line can be a visible or invisible line. Telephone poles that suddenly appear to be coming out of a person’s head are an example of leading lines that should not get into a photograph.

Patterns and Repetition

Just as lines can lead the eye to a place in the photograph, patterns can draw in the viewer to evaluate what they are looking at. Whether a repeated shape leads the eye through the image, or a staggered pattern gives depth, you control where the eye looks. Including a repeating element in a photo, such as a sequence of swimmers’ feet, or a row of helmeted football players on a sideline or a whole basket of peaches.

Blurring and Freezing Action

Most sports photos are taken with a fast shutter speed, which freezes the action, and can show the contortions of the athlete’s body. Another way of capturing movement is by panning or moving your camera with the object you are photographing. This keeps your subject in focus, but blurs the background, to give a good sense of speed. For more information on shutter speed, see the "Photography Basics" section.

Light

Light; its direction, its colour, its contrast, its intensity, its absence, is the ingredient without which there is no photo, no image, no moment. The quality of the light affects the overall mood of the photo, the shadows which may or may not occur and every other part of the photograph. A great time of day for soft, mellow light in pictures happens at the “golden hour,” which is about an hour before sunset. Photographs taken in bright light at noon have a lot of contrast, which creates harsh shadows, and can give people raccoon eyes.

Patience and The Decisive Moment

Since a photograph is a fraction of a second, the photographer learns to anticipate and to trip the shutter to capture the exact moment of an action or scene. Catching action is one of the hardest things to do. It is easy to go to a game, take 200 photographs and still not have one good image. If there is no action in the photograph, no interaction between people, no reaction to events and no emotion that you can define, what story are you telling?