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Composition & Visual Design

Point of View

The position from which a photograph is taken, encompassing height, angle, distance and orientation.

In depth

Point of view is the one decision no equipment can substitute for, because it determines every spatial relationship in the frame: what overlaps what, how large the foreground is, where the lines converge. Changing lens changes how much is included; changing position changes what the picture is actually about.

Examples in practice

Crouching and moving two metres left turns a cluttered street scene into one where a doorway frames the subject cleanly.