Mastering Photography Composition for Impactful Shots

Introduction

Composition Is the Difference Between a Snapshot and a Compelling Photo

You can have all the technical skills in the world, and you can know your way around your camera as well as the next person—but none of that will improve your actual photography.

Oh yes, you may have super sharp photos, but no one cares much about your photographs, because of this one other thing.  This one other nagging thing that won’t go away and hasn’t been properly addressed…until now perhaps?

Because the reason why other people’s photos seem more visually striking than yours, is nothing to do with gear, or even the lighting. More often than not, it’s down to one thing: strong or weak composition.

Why Composition Matters

What we all should learn early on in our photography journey is this:

Composition is the key factor that transforms a simple snapshot into a compelling photograph.

It’s not about how expensive your camera is, or whether you’re shooting RAW. 

The arrangement of elements within your frame—how you guide the viewer’s eye, how you create balance, and how you choose what to include or leave out—this is what separates an average image from a striking one.

The Common Struggle

This is where most photographers get stuck. They’ve learned the technical stuff—shutter speeds, apertures, ISO—but something is still missing. That “wow” factor that makes a viewer pause and take a closer look.

That something is composition.

The problem with these photos is not any technical difficulty. It is composition, and only composition.

This is part 2 of 4 articles, each with an associated video, which collectively forms an entire course around improving your composition skills, but in a way that maybe you have never come across before.  Because I will be teaching you the same method of composing photographs as that employed by the giants of photography past and present. From Ansel Adams to Annie Leibovitz.  

Because the greats of photography always compose intuitively, not through prescriptive and arbitrary rules, such as those you will almost certainly have been taught up until now.  

Across this entire series, I’ll guide you through:

• The most common composition mistakes that landscape photographers make.
  
• A step-by-step approach to overcoming those mistakes.
  
• Essential compositional techniques you can start using right away.
  

By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to build a strong composition—and how doing so will dramatically improve your photos and accelerate your growth as a photographer.

A Quick Tease

The main technique I’m going to share with you in this article is absolutely critical to creating genuinely impactful photographs.

I’m talking about two key elements that, once you understand them, will forever change the way you approach a scene.

Let’s dive in.

Two Key Elements Fundamental to Understanding Composition

So, there are two elements that are absolutely fundamental to understanding composition: peripheral vision and direct vision.

I know that might sound a little abstract at first — but once you understand how these two types of vision affect the way we look at and interpret a scene, and how they translate into a photo, it can (and should) transform the way you approach your photography.

These two elements are going to completely shift the way you think about composing your photos. At least they should do.

3 Big Reasons Why Photos Lack Visual Appeal

There are many compositional issues photographers run into, but I’ve narrowed them down to three major problems that I see time and time again. These issues are often responsible for why an image feels flat, chaotic, or uninteresting.

1. The Subject Is Too Small or Lost in the Scene

This one is particularly common among beginners. The subject is present, but it’s:

• Too far away in the frame
• Overshadowed by other elements
• Lacking prominence

The result? The viewer’s eye doesn’t know what to focus on, and the image lacks punch.

2. The Composition Is Cluttered

This happens when:

• There are too many competing elements
• There’s no clear hierarchy of objects
• The scene feels chaotic or busy

Instead of drawing the viewer in, the clutter pushes them away. It overwhelms rather than engages.

3. There’s No Clear Focal Point

Sometimes, there simply isn’t an obvious subject at all. The photo feels:

• Unstructured
• Ambiguous
• Emotionally disconnected

The viewer is left asking, What am I supposed to be looking at?—and that’s the last thing we want.

Take a look at the example images here. You’ll notice they all contain one or more of these issues, which is exactly why they fall short of being truly impactful.

How to Make a Photo Impactful

For a photograph to really connect with a viewer, their eye must be drawn immediately—and effortlessly—to the subject. That first glance should be:

• Instant
• Clear
• Distraction-free

And this is the problem we’re aiming to solve with the compositional techniques in this guide.

The First Step: Identify the Subject

Imagine you’re standing in front of a scene, ready to take a photo. Before you even lift your camera, ask yourself:

What is the subject of this photograph?

This is not always as obvious as it seems, but it’s crucial.  Anyway, let’s just park that there for a moment, we’ll come back to that later, because there’s something else we need to talk about first.

Two Invisible Elements That Shape Composition

When composing a scene, there are two physically invisible elements that play a huge role in how you take a photo, and how a viewer views a photo.  And the amount of prominence they are given in a composition will have a profound effect on how easily the viewer’s eye goes to the subject.:

1. Peripheral Vision – This is how we take in the overall scene, from the very edge of our vision. This is the part of our vision where our brain will filter out visual information to allow us to concentrate on what we are actually looking at

2. Direct Vision – This is how we focus on specific details when we look out onto a scene, that is where we pick up fine details and lock onto them. It’s where the eye lands first, ideally right on the subject.

These two types of vision, if that’s the right way of putting it,  and how they work together, can make or break a photo’s composition.

One Fundamental Thing That Affects the Way We See a Scene

When we stand in front of a beautiful landscape or compelling subject, we often assume that we’re taking in the entire scene equally. But that’s not actually how our vision—and more importantly, our brain—works.

And because of the way we interpret  elements in our peripheral vision, and elements in our direct vision, our brain filters most of what we see. 

It instinctively removes unimportant details from our peripheral vision and sharpens only the area we’re directly looking at. This happens automatically and without us noticing.

What this means for photographers is huge:

To show how this works in a real-world setting, let me walk you through an actual example using a Google Street View image and the final photo I captured from that location.  We looked at this in the previous article when we talked about the moment of inspiration.

That intuitive feeling you get—the moment of inspiration—is often triggered by something in our direct vision, not the whole scene as we see it.

If you’re not aware of this, you might incorrectly assume the entire view inspired you. But in reality, only a small portion of the scene held your attention.

Once you understand this, you’ll start placing your subject more deliberately within the frame. Your compositions will become tighter, more focused, and much more visually appealing.

But essentially what we are doing is working out what the subject is, and then where to place it, and how big or small on the frame does it need to be in order to satisfy that initial intuitive moment.

Example – How to Find the Subject of Your Image

In a previous post, I talked about the moment of inspiration—that sudden, intuitive feeling that makes you stop and say, “This would make a good photograph” 

I consider this the most important rule in photography because it’s where every compelling photo begins.

• My peripheral vision took in the entire environment, much like what you’d see in this Google Street View image.
  
• My direct vision, however, was locked in on the subject—the part of the scene that actually made me stop.

The Google Street View gives us a neutral, non-artistic perspective. It shows everything in equal detail, which is not how we experience the world as photographers (or as humans).

Here’s what happened next:

1. My brain filtered out the irrelevant elements from the periphery.
   
2. I focused completely on what was in front of me—the subject that had triggered my creative instinct.
   
3. I composed the shot to eliminate everything that wasn’t contributing to that moment of inspiration.
   

The Result

By acknowledging what my direct vision had picked up on—and disregarding the distractions in my peripheral vision—I was able to make a photograph that was simple, clean, and visually appealing.

This approach reflects how we all experience the landscapes we visit. It’s not about photographing everything—it’s about honing in on the part of the scene that truly matters, the bit that created that moment of inspiration in the first place.

Understanding this difference is the first big step toward composing photographs correctly after having that moment of inspiration.  It’s all part of that discipline.

How We All Interpret the Landscapes That We Photograph

When we view a scene in real life, we experience it with both peripheral and direct vision at the same time. However, when we take a photograph – especially with a wide-angle lens – we effectively compress both types of vision into a single image.

The Difference Between a Photo  and the Actual Scene

Take a look at a Google Street View scene. What you’re seeing is:

• The full environment.
  
• A blend of what would’ve been your direct and peripheral vision in real life.
  

But once captured in a photograph, all of that visual information is flattened into the viewer’s direct vision. This is a crucial shift:

• For the photographer taking a photo, his or hers peripheral vision includes the entire scene from the entire field of view in front of them, which would be an enormous space.
  
• In a photograph, all of that content from the composition – whether it was peripheral or not (for the photographer) – is now front and center in the viewer’s direct vision.
  

Why This Matters

This merging of peripheral and direct vision in photography can weaken the visual impact of an image—unless the photographer is aware of what they’re including and excluding in the frame.

Understanding this shift helps you compose more consciously, ensuring your photo retains the power of that moment of inspiration you felt in real life.

The Thing That Dilutes the Visual Effect of a Photo

In the previous example, you saw how a photo that includes too much of the original peripheral vision becomes diluted. The impact of the subject—your reason for taking the photo in the first place—gets lost.

Let’s break that down further.

Why Some Photos Lack Impact

A photo loses visual strength when:

• It includes too much irrelevant content from your peripheral vision.
• It fails to isolate the subject that triggered your moment of inspiration.
• The composition feels unfocused or “busy” as a result.

Compare two images:

• Photo A includes everything—both the subject and a lot of unnecessary surroundings. It lacks focus.
  
• Photo B isolates just the subject from your direct vision. It feels impactful and intentional.

If your moment of inspiration happened in your direct vision, then everything outside of that should be excluded from your photo as much as possible.

Photographers can overlook this, including unnecessary elements simply because they were present at the scene. But if your brain had already filtered them out—your photo should too.

Over-Reliance on Wide-Angle Lenses

One of the biggest culprits in diluting a photo’s impact is the overuse of wide-angle lenses, especially in landscape photography.

The Problem with Going Wide

Wide-angle lenses are popular because they can:

• Capture dramatic skies.
• Include important and striking foreground interest.
• Show scale.

But here’s the danger:

When applied to every scene, wide-angle lenses can pull in too much of your peripheral vision, often including parts of the scene that weren’t part of your inital moment of inspiration.

This can weaken the impact of the subject, making it feel small or lost within the frame.

A Better Approach

• Ask yourself: What exactly caught my attention?
• Use a focal length and composition that isolates that detail.

Final Thought

There is nothing wrong with wide angle lenses, and there are compositions, like classic sweeping vista compositions that require a wide angle lens. Just use them with care, making sure they enhance the subject – not dilute it. Let your moment of inspiration guide your decisions.

In fact, why not head out now with these principles fresh in your mind and get some practice in and really start to capture images to be proud of.