"Fifteen-Day Event Encouraging Photographic Artistry" or "Seventeen-Day Aesthetic Photography Contest"
Embark on a 15-day journey to improve your photographic skills with the 15-day photography composition challenge. This structured exercise, designed to help photographers hone their compositional abilities, presents a different composition technique or concept each day.
One confirmed technique from a similar challenge is foreground framing, where the subject is "framed" by out-of-focus elements in the foreground to draw the viewer’s eye to the main subject. This technique, along with others, helps guide the viewer's focus through deliberate use of foreground elements.
Other common composition techniques likely included in such challenges are the rule of thirds, leading lines, symmetry and patterns, framing (including foreground framing), negative space, depth and layers, colour contrast and harmony, perspective and viewpoint, balance and visual weight, and texture. These techniques help photographers see and structure their images more intentionally and creatively.
The challenge can be worked on in any order or chosen at will. For instance, one day you might be asked to take a photo outdoors and exclude the horizon for an interesting scene, while another day you could be challenged to use the rule of thirds, negative space, pairs, shapes, a limited colour palette, and diagonal lines.
Pairs involve looking for two main subjects instead of one, while negative space involves giving the subject room to breathe by using empty space as part of the composition. The rule of thirds involves placing the main subject away from the centre of the frame but not too close to the edge. Placing a light subject against a dark background creates tonal contrast, and a limited colour palette involves using a few bright colours against a grey background.
Diagonal lines are used to add excitement and interest to the composition, and using shapes involves looking for subjects with strong shapes like squares, rectangles, triangles, or circles. Find a scene with repeating shapes that form a pattern, and divide the frame in two creatively, effectively creating two photos in one.
Photograph a heavily textured subject, preferably in black and white, and use a long focal length to compress perspective, especially if it's not used often. Moving in close and using a wide-angle lens creates a sense of intimacy. Each challenge is designed to be worked on over the course of a day.
This practical training tool, as also recommended in well-regarded photography resources like Michael Freeman’s *The Photographer's Eye*, ensures consistent practice, building a stronger photographic eye over time. So, are you ready to take on the 15-day photography composition challenge and elevate your photography skills?
In the 15-day photography composition challenge, you might be encouraged to photograph a home-and-garden scene using a limited black and white color palette, with a focus on texture to add depth and layers to the composition. For lifestyle photography, you could be challenged to create pairs of interesting subjects, framing them within the rule of thirds and using negative space to give the subjects room to breathe.
