For a magazine project I am working on now, I had to update a photograph of our board members, to reflect changes that have occurred since the original photograph was taken.
The original photo was shot in 2007, I believe. Even then, not all of the then-current board members were available at the time of the photo shoot. I arranged for one of my coworkers, Kenton Rogers, to take one photo without the missing members, who were added later when they were able to come and sit for a photo.
Composition is one of the areas that distinguishes experienced photographers from amateurs. Part of learning composition is learning to see a photograph for only what is in the photo itself. In other words, don’t assume the person viewing the photo will understand the bigger picture — the parts of the scene you have cropped out, or the relationship between objects that would be clearer when seen in real life.
Another important part of composition is learning how to honor the subject. Although the background may be really awesome, if the subject is a person, the focus needs to be on them — even if it means cropping part of that oh-so-inspiring background out of the photo.
