What are the basic elements of photography?

When we pick up a camera to photograph, we must be clear about the four most basic elements, which are the foundation of photography, and only in this way can we create valuable works:

I. Concept
I understand the concept of concept is that before deciding to start shooting a work — no matter how long or short the time — the author must be partially or completely clear:
What is it that strikes me in this scene?What is the core element?What is the indispensable auxiliary element?What kind of feeling do I get?Can this intuitive feeling sublimate into a visual theme?Will others be interested in such a theme?If I decide to record and convey this theme, is this scene enough to express it?
There is a process of self-verification involved.You can allow some people to have different understandings of your work for a period of time, but you can’t let everyone never understand it.
Here, take an example of shooting seascape to illustrate the process.Once, I agreed with two old friends in Shenzhen to go to Dapeng Peninsula to shoot seascape. The whole process is as follows:
Design of shooting theme: I decided to create a “elusive, fairy-like seascape of rocks”;Determination of means of realization: such effect can only be produced by long-time exposure to rocks and waves; The choice of weather and shooting location: choose a sunny day with sunrise, the beach of Dapeng Peninsula facing the east, stay in the local place the night before shooting, familiar with the terrain and the road conditions to the shooting spot in advance;
The arrangement of shooting time: the seasonal festival is about 5:50-6:00, the sea sky is early.In this way, the requirements are to set up the camera and complete the shooting preparation before 5:15;
The actual shooting process: I started from 5:15, first shooting the first one with the combination of F/8 and 16min, then, in the case that the sun has jumped out of the water, I shot several more.One of the warm works is the combination of F/22 and 1/8sec;
The results were developed a few days later. As a test film, I feel it is OK. The long exposure basically achieved the e

ffect I expected.

II. Composition

There are many monographs on composition techniques, so there is no need for me to dwell on it.Here I share some of my accumulated feelings during the actual shooting process:
In the process of setting up the above habits of thinking will be greatly conducive to helping the composition.For example, to distinguish the core elements and auxiliary elements in the scene can help us smoothly extract the subject and the accompanying body.In fact, in many cases, the setting up and the composition are synchronous or interspersed;
the position of the body (the center of interest) must be prominent.It can be placed on the intersection of the “golden ratio”, or in the middle of the picture or other positions, depending on the creative intention.Only the necessary accompanying body is retained to make the picture concise and orderly;the overall sense of balance of the picture should be paid attention to.Of course, some themes need to create a sense of unbalance, which is not included in this list;
be good at using the foreground and background, the depth of field and the visual guide line that directs the viewer’s gaze to the subject to create a three-dimensional sense of the picture.The foreground can also play a good role in balancing the picture sometimes;the composition should not be too full, and the picture should be left blank in most cases of landscape photography; pay attention to the position of the horizontal line in the picture, and whether it is in a horizontal state;
I usually shoot at least one horizontal and vertical composition for different purposes when I think a good scene is taken. I from the beginning of the requirements of their own rigorous composition, never take random shooting, post-production to do cutting way.
Three, with light or shadow effect works, mostly have a trail to follow: – make good use of early and late light, create low color temperature, contrast of the picture, such as early sunset, long time exposure works; make good use of backlight or side backlight, outline the contours of the scene or make silhouette effect, enhance the three-dimensional sense of the picture; make good use of side light caused by the light and shade difference in the surface of non smooth objects, highlight the texture of the object;make good use of backlight highlight red leaves, yellow leaves of color brightness, saturation and leaf texture;borrow through the clouds or object gap beam light on the subject of the irradiation, get similar to the effect of stage lighting.For example, the small village on the western plateau, often encounter light lit the village, and the surrounding mountains and fields are hidden in the shadow of the clouds under the shadow of such scenes;skillfully use the reflection of the object on the water;with a slow door or light reduction lens to prolong the exposure time, so that the moving objects produce tail effect, water into a silk, spray into a cloud, fast-moving clouds blurred, the car lights in the night formed a light belt…… and so on.
Four, color shooting color photos, the composition of the color composition is another big evaluation dimension.When evaluating the composition of color, there are two very different evaluation directions. One is that a picture with strong contrasting colors is more “attractive”.Contrasting colors usually refer to complementary colors, such as cyan and red, magenta and green, yellow and blue.Each pair of complementary colors will fade (i.e. get white) after mixing. Another is that a picture with harmonious colors is more “pleasing to the eye”.Color harmony usually refers to the situation where the colors contained in the picture are similar in color (i.e. color type), purity (i.e. brightness) and brightness (i.e. where it is between white, gray and black): similar color.For example, two colors in the same red family are easy to be harmonious; similar purity.For example, two colors of medium purity are more harmonious than one of high purity and one of low purity;similar brightness.For example, two pale colors are more harmonious than one pale and one thick.In addition, some psychological factors can affect people’s perception of color.For example, the size, shape and distribution of color area; various color combinations when seen as abstract shapes or as the expression of recognizable objects;the age of the viewer and his or her art education level; long-term viewing will produce an adaptation effect, which will confuse the sense of the attractiveness of color combinations;advertising will lead people to judge whether color combinations are in line with the trend, etc. In the case of black and white photos, only one of the three color attributes is left: brightness. It has to do with the amount of detail (especially in the light or dark), the amount of layers/transitions, and the amount of contrast.