The Art of Photography: Composition and Technique with Robert Capa

Robert Capa's photographs are renowned for their simplicity and elegance, yet they convey a sense of complexity and depth that rewards close examination. In this article, we will explore some of the key compositional elements that underlie his most famous images.

One of the first principles of composition that emerges from Capa's work is the importance of point of focus. This refers to the area of the image that the viewer is intended to look at, and it can be used to create a sense of simplicity and clarity in an otherwise busy scene. In many of his photographs, Capa has chosen to place the point of focus on a subject's face or body, creating a strong visual connection with the viewer. This technique requires a good understanding of depth of field, which is achieved by adjusting the aperture to control the amount of blur in the background.

For example, in this image from 1953 in Paris, Capa has used a moderate aperture (around f/4 or f/5.6) to create a soft, blurred effect in the background, allowing the viewer's eye to be drawn to the couple embracing in the foreground. This is an effective use of depth of field, as it creates a sense of intimacy and closeness between the subject and the viewer.

Another key compositional element that emerges from Capa's work is the concept of the "golden section." This refers to the ratio at which certain elements are spaced apart on a canvas or frame, creating a visually pleasing and balanced composition. In many of his photographs, Capa has used this technique to create a sense of harmony and order, often by placing important subjects in relation to the edge of the frame or along a line that divides the image into two equal parts.

In this image from the 1930s, Capa has used the golden section principle to place the cyclist at the exact center of the frame, creating a strong visual connection with the viewer. The use of this technique adds depth and complexity to the image, drawing the viewer's eye through the photograph and creating a sense of movement and energy.

In addition to these technical elements, Capa's photographs are also notable for their use of contrast and texture. He often used a shallow depth of field, which created a sense of separation between different elements in the scene, adding visual interest and variety to his images.

For example, in this image from 1941, Capa has used the contrast between light and dark to create a sense of drama and tension. The white beach and dark figures on board the boat create a strong visual contrast that draws the viewer's eye into the image.

Capa's work is also notable for its use of implied forms and shapes. In many of his photographs, he has used suggestion rather than explicit statement to convey meaning and mood. This technique requires a good understanding of composition and visual storytelling.

For example, in this image from 1951, Capa has used the implication of lines and shapes to create a sense of movement and energy. The boat's wake on the water creates a strong visual line that draws the viewer's eye through the photograph, while the cyclist on the road ahead adds a sense of tension and drama.

Finally, it is worth noting that Capa's work was also influenced by his understanding of the "80/20 rule," which states that 80% of the meaning in an image comes from 20% of the composition. In many of his photographs, he has used this principle to create a sense of focus and direction, often by placing important subjects at the center of the frame or along a strong visual line.

In this image from 1938, Capa has used the 80/20 rule to create a sense of balance and harmony. The subject's face is placed in relation to the edge of the frame, while the background provides a subtle but effective contrast that draws the viewer's eye into the image.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enview previous episodes and more at WWDC a.m. welcome to the art of photography I'm Ted Forbes today we're going to talk some more about compositional technique now back in December we did an episode it was episode 5 and outlined in that episode the rule of thirds and since then I've gotten a lot of emails from people a lot of really good response from photographers saying that they really like more of this kind of thing and so what we're going to do is dive in today and we're going to talk about composition none of this has anything to do with equipment anything and we're going to look at some photographs but specifically I can't want to draw an analogy here first of all and I think a lot of people get a little bit confused on these types of things but but really there's kind of two types of photography that I like to view and this doesn't this aren't necessarily styles of photography with their approaches to photography and you know being a former musician myself I'm going to make this analogy of photography to jazz music and if you look at one of the great jazz musicians like John Coltrane and Miles Davis especially in jazz music there's basically two approaches to playing in jazz one you have a compositional a spectra of melodies or chord changes the stay consistent and that what defines a song and then you have an improvisational element where the musician is able to improvise a solo over the top you know within a set of restraints that are predefined on that they don't just play anything they you know will play over the chord changes and play the right notes things like that so anyway and I think photography can be a little bit like that too you have you know things that are very composed that require a little pre visible pre-visualization to where you're in the studio and you kind of know what you're going for right up front and that's more like composition where you're coming up with with what you're going to do and then there's improvisational photography which actually is more like photojournalism or street photography things like that where you'll see guys like you know the great French photographer honoré cut to a bro song or Robert Capa or guys like that that you know that they're presented to act in whatever their surroundings are giving them at that moment it's a lot less setups a lot less composed however what we're going to look at today we're going to look at some Cartier songs work specifically but I want to show you that the I think cardio burst song especially you know somebody who prided himself on being very improvisational in nature there's still some compositional you know unity that you see from photograph to photograph a lot in his work and I want to point out some of those things today before we get there though I want to mention one of the things hurted by self you're not familiar with this work was a French photojournalist in the really the 40s 50s and 60s and later became a painter before he died but anyway he arguably is you know I mean gosh one of the greats and photojournalism his photographs he's got some very famous stuff you've probably seen before if you're not familiar with him that you'll recognize but cartier-bresson spoke a lot of what he called the decisive moment and basically this was kind of a laudatory way of saying that you know he knew the the precise moment the decisive moment of when to push the shutter release and take the shot and well okay I agree with that and that that is a big part of the improvisational aspect of it I guarantee Cartier Bresson knew what he was doing he'd studied design he had an eye for composition there's certain elements they would look through and we're going to look through some of those right now and some of his photographs so come over with me and we'll check them out okay today we're going to look at some underneath our Tabas ons photographs but first of all what I want to do is just review a little bit the last composition episode we did was on the rule of thirds and just to reiterate what that was if you have a blank canvas here and I subdivide this you know both vertically and horizontally by thirds you get these points of interests that occur there before off on a on a composition here and roughly these you can kind of think of them as each point would fall two thirds along the point of a line so if we simplify this a little bit if you simply have a line and you have you know point A and point B at defining the line and then you put a point roughly two thirds along the way either either here or here you have again if created some tension and if I take this just to step beyond that and I put a point here let's put a point here and let's let's pull this third point out put it two thirds along the way you'll end up getting kind of this triangular shape and you're going to see a lot of this embrace anse work that's why I'm bringing this up now under cartier-bresson was trained as a painter and he was trained specifically in you know kind of a traditional renaissance style later came a photographer and you know although he claimed that you know a lot of stuff was spontaneous in the decisive moment notion you know I can't help but think you know from an improvisational standpoint certainly he probably was improvising but a lot of these compositional aspects you know certainly come through in his work and we're going to see that here this first image I want to look at is actually a later image and it's not one of the more popular breasts on works but there's there's so many things going on right in this image that I think it's so interesting first of all if you're Brisson was a painter and this image was taken in Italy and you have certainly the Renaissance aspect Italian style of sculpture with these with the two sculptures that are here and then of course the breast saw an element of these two boys that they kind of bring that improvisational feel into this and you'll also notice they're kind of you have these implied lines that happen and mainly these points of where you see eyes and where you see people looking and so obviously this this statue would be looking down at the boys and then you see the interplay between this and the boys and this third line implied here which would indicate your triangle again with the the golden ratio here are these points of interest a lot of times it's called the golden mean and we'll explain that shortly but anyway that's what you have going on there also you know it's no coincidence that these kids here fall again if I subdivide both vertically and horizontally you know you have your golden section down here at which your point of interest is falling so again one of the things that compositionally this is really a study in composition that you know in simplicity that make that happen this is a little bit earlier image here this is from 1932 with these two two guys lying in a field in France and again decisive moment give or take but you know obviously you see the triangle shape that's implied directionally by you know the way their legs are positioned where their heads are that that occurs in this photograph and you know it probably was improvised to extend but you know that wouldn't work as well if they were both lying in the same position so kind of interesting another one from 1932 this is a famous brace on photograph of these two gentlemen looking through this piece of canvas it's something on the other side you know and I think in a classical sense you do kind of have you know this triangle shape that extends out this way you have this you know another another line that's kind of implied along the eyes here and then but I think most the tension here actually happens between the fact that these two you know you have the human face so close to this thing that you can't see through that that certainly creates a lot of attention as well and then also this gentleman over here on this you know this right third division if you will where you have the golden mane right on his head the point of interest obviously the way it's dressed - people don't dress like this anymore so a lot of these photos really have this nostalgic quality of a time in a place that the you know you don't capture these days in street photography but and I think that adds a lot to these images a lot of that feel but obviously brilliant photograph we have another one here you can see the point of interest this is interesting to me too because you have this crowd there's a zillion people in here but the guy who stands out that holds your point of interest is this you know character down the bottom who's got the military you know clothes on with this big white beard obviously standing out so this is a point of interest you obviously have also disome plied to triangular shape - you know you have a line kind of over here I think arguably you have contrast between the people with darker clothing and the photographer down here in the white white outfit kind of touristy looking and then somewhat over here where these guards are all gathered and again you would have kind of this triangular point of interest now another thing that's interesting about this image too is if you look at the horizon line back here it's not straight at all the camera was not straight in the shot but it is lined up with the gentleman in the middle where your point of interest is a my point in telling you this is this composition is so strong you don't notice the horizon being off because all these other elements are in place so it kind of take cares of takes care of itself in that regard and I think this is one of the things that Britain was so natural at again you can see the obvious symmetry that set up the triangular you know with your your vanishing point horizon lines you know basic design stuff and you have the symmetry that's set up and obviously you would think at first your focal point is right here dead square in the middle of the photograph but it's not because you have the gentleman speaking at this crowd who's who's off-center over here and it's almost the the right third over here actually on this point of interest to the intersecting golden mean if you will which actually draws you away from that see how tension that is created compositionally without being too too much it obviously retains a sense of simplicity that I think is important to this this photo as well we have another one this is 1938 this is a little more complex and this I would say is total decisive moment at its finest where you have this gentleman down here again on the lower lower intersecting third here in this golden section who's kissing the Cardinals hand obviously that's a point of impact there and you know brace on I'm sure was thinking that at least on a subconscious level he took this photo he also took the photo at the right moment so again that's why I say this is a decisive moment at its best even though the image the expressions on the faces of the people who are not particularly on the point of interest are extremely interesting but you also again if you look at direction with eyes and things like that you have implied kind of triangular shapes that happen within the composition you know you obviously have another one kind of tighter here so anyway there's there's like I said there's so much going on in here that is so beautiful that you know I think this is this in my opinion is Rosanna is the best you know very improvisational not too compositional at the same time has all those elements that make it a great photo and if you've ever shot photos and crowds before they can be they can be tricky to get anything that makes any sense just because getting simplicity with so many people's is so difficult also you'll notice the depth of field your point of focus is down here and he has this set an aperture PI 5 6 something 4 somewhere in there if 4 to where you start to get blurred out in the back but it's not too much it's it's not razor sharp depth of field by any means but but it's perfect for the image anyway we'll move on this is a later image this 1953 in Paris I believe and you have obviously a point of interest down here there's another rule we'll talk about another episode the 80/20 rule where you know 80% of the the meet of your composition is driven by 20% of the actual composition you can see that most the activity that draws your eyes down here in the bottom 20% of at least the bottom third of this this photograph specifically the couple that's sitting here embracing looking out in this wonderful view and then you also if you consider that as a point and you kind of have this trying emotion that is kind of defined also by the young schoolgirls that are that are in the front you're going to see this embrace on its work too but you also kind of have a lot of these arcs that occur down here if you were to take a compass and draw on it and this is very important we'll see another image that uses this in a minute but anyway it sets up a very strong composition this is obviously a beautiful landscape it's very sharp very detailed but it wouldn't be the same photo all the the stuff that really gives a lot of soul occurs in this bottom third down here in this triangular implicit implication of a shape so you know obviously wonderful stuff here's another image this is a even simpler where you simply have this line that's implied by the boats which divides your camp your canvas into kind of you know two-thirds one-third but you know not horizontally or vertically in strict fashion obviously you have the horizon here that does does imply it as well but that's not your major focal point on here your major focal point is these boats again the contrast the the water is very light and tone it's very white and you know you have these these guys on a gray day with heavy coats and hats and you know anyway obviously wonderful and then finally them to end on this image this is one of the more famous Brits on images and again I think there's so much going on here that is just wonderful obviously guess what's sitting right on the golden section point of interest here is the cyclist if you subdivide your canvas like this and here he is right here on this golden section here and so anyway also you see the cyclist there's an implied sense of motion in here as well which is which is extremely important the shutter speed that Brisson used on this photo was perfect if it were any slower you might have the cyclists blurred out too much and you'd start to lose the identity that he is on bicycle if it were slower you would lose the sense of motion would be too sharp he would be in - - in focus so again it's absolutely perfect also the way the stairs you know kind of are implied here you end up with these strong lines that kind of create you know this triangle shape and again you have your curve along here with the street corner which again and there you could subdivide this further I mean this is almost like a nautilus with all the geometry and shape that's going on between the street up here and the stairs and all this so again you know you have somebody in brisson who you know interestingly enough denied a lot of these things and and you know during his lifetime even claimed that he wasn't interested in photography I think it's also worth noting that at the time that you know he was the most active you had this heavy fine art movement of surrealism going on at the same time his stuff was not so realistic it was really kind of borrowing a lot of elements from classical composition and Renaissance painting and things like that so you know there's kind of a contrast there and in the time that he existed he was also more of a photojournalist and less of a fine art photographer obviously that's arguable because you will see his work in museums now but but he really you know encapsulated a lot of this this this notion of street photography and the whole decisive moment thing but I think what a lot of people look at is they look at that and they don't realize that Brisson straining you know like I keep saying I think at least on a subconscious level these compositional elements had to permeate his work they're they're way too prevalent and these compositions depend on I'm having these things in place as you can see so anyway hope that helps this has been the art of photography thanks for watchingview previous episodes and more at WWDC a.m. welcome to the art of photography I'm Ted Forbes today we're going to talk some more about compositional technique now back in December we did an episode it was episode 5 and outlined in that episode the rule of thirds and since then I've gotten a lot of emails from people a lot of really good response from photographers saying that they really like more of this kind of thing and so what we're going to do is dive in today and we're going to talk about composition none of this has anything to do with equipment anything and we're going to look at some photographs but specifically I can't want to draw an analogy here first of all and I think a lot of people get a little bit confused on these types of things but but really there's kind of two types of photography that I like to view and this doesn't this aren't necessarily styles of photography with their approaches to photography and you know being a former musician myself I'm going to make this analogy of photography to jazz music and if you look at one of the great jazz musicians like John Coltrane and Miles Davis especially in jazz music there's basically two approaches to playing in jazz one you have a compositional a spectra of melodies or chord changes the stay consistent and that what defines a song and then you have an improvisational element where the musician is able to improvise a solo over the top you know within a set of restraints that are predefined on that they don't just play anything they you know will play over the chord changes and play the right notes things like that so anyway and I think photography can be a little bit like that too you have you know things that are very composed that require a little pre visible pre-visualization to where you're in the studio and you kind of know what you're going for right up front and that's more like composition where you're coming up with with what you're going to do and then there's improvisational photography which actually is more like photojournalism or street photography things like that where you'll see guys like you know the great French photographer honoré cut to a bro song or Robert Capa or guys like that that you know that they're presented to act in whatever their surroundings are giving them at that moment it's a lot less setups a lot less composed however what we're going to look at today we're going to look at some Cartier songs work specifically but I want to show you that the I think cardio burst song especially you know somebody who prided himself on being very improvisational in nature there's still some compositional you know unity that you see from photograph to photograph a lot in his work and I want to point out some of those things today before we get there though I want to mention one of the things hurted by self you're not familiar with this work was a French photojournalist in the really the 40s 50s and 60s and later became a painter before he died but anyway he arguably is you know I mean gosh one of the greats and photojournalism his photographs he's got some very famous stuff you've probably seen before if you're not familiar with him that you'll recognize but cartier-bresson spoke a lot of what he called the decisive moment and basically this was kind of a laudatory way of saying that you know he knew the the precise moment the decisive moment of when to push the shutter release and take the shot and well okay I agree with that and that that is a big part of the improvisational aspect of it I guarantee Cartier Bresson knew what he was doing he'd studied design he had an eye for composition there's certain elements they would look through and we're going to look through some of those right now and some of his photographs so come over with me and we'll check them out okay today we're going to look at some underneath our Tabas ons photographs but first of all what I want to do is just review a little bit the last composition episode we did was on the rule of thirds and just to reiterate what that was if you have a blank canvas here and I subdivide this you know both vertically and horizontally by thirds you get these points of interests that occur there before off on a on a composition here and roughly these you can kind of think of them as each point would fall two thirds along the point of a line so if we simplify this a little bit if you simply have a line and you have you know point A and point B at defining the line and then you put a point roughly two thirds along the way either either here or here you have again if created some tension and if I take this just to step beyond that and I put a point here let's put a point here and let's let's pull this third point out put it two thirds along the way you'll end up getting kind of this triangular shape and you're going to see a lot of this embrace anse work that's why I'm bringing this up now under cartier-bresson was trained as a painter and he was trained specifically in you know kind of a traditional renaissance style later came a photographer and you know although he claimed that you know a lot of stuff was spontaneous in the decisive moment notion you know I can't help but think you know from an improvisational standpoint certainly he probably was improvising but a lot of these compositional aspects you know certainly come through in his work and we're going to see that here this first image I want to look at is actually a later image and it's not one of the more popular breasts on works but there's there's so many things going on right in this image that I think it's so interesting first of all if you're Brisson was a painter and this image was taken in Italy and you have certainly the Renaissance aspect Italian style of sculpture with these with the two sculptures that are here and then of course the breast saw an element of these two boys that they kind of bring that improvisational feel into this and you'll also notice they're kind of you have these implied lines that happen and mainly these points of where you see eyes and where you see people looking and so obviously this this statue would be looking down at the boys and then you see the interplay between this and the boys and this third line implied here which would indicate your triangle again with the the golden ratio here are these points of interest a lot of times it's called the golden mean and we'll explain that shortly but anyway that's what you have going on there also you know it's no coincidence that these kids here fall again if I subdivide both vertically and horizontally you know you have your golden section down here at which your point of interest is falling so again one of the things that compositionally this is really a study in composition that you know in simplicity that make that happen this is a little bit earlier image here this is from 1932 with these two two guys lying in a field in France and again decisive moment give or take but you know obviously you see the triangle shape that's implied directionally by you know the way their legs are positioned where their heads are that that occurs in this photograph and you know it probably was improvised to extend but you know that wouldn't work as well if they were both lying in the same position so kind of interesting another one from 1932 this is a famous brace on photograph of these two gentlemen looking through this piece of canvas it's something on the other side you know and I think in a classical sense you do kind of have you know this triangle shape that extends out this way you have this you know another another line that's kind of implied along the eyes here and then but I think most the tension here actually happens between the fact that these two you know you have the human face so close to this thing that you can't see through that that certainly creates a lot of attention as well and then also this gentleman over here on this you know this right third division if you will where you have the golden mane right on his head the point of interest obviously the way it's dressed - people don't dress like this anymore so a lot of these photos really have this nostalgic quality of a time in a place that the you know you don't capture these days in street photography but and I think that adds a lot to these images a lot of that feel but obviously brilliant photograph we have another one here you can see the point of interest this is interesting to me too because you have this crowd there's a zillion people in here but the guy who stands out that holds your point of interest is this you know character down the bottom who's got the military you know clothes on with this big white beard obviously standing out so this is a point of interest you obviously have also disome plied to triangular shape - you know you have a line kind of over here I think arguably you have contrast between the people with darker clothing and the photographer down here in the white white outfit kind of touristy looking and then somewhat over here where these guards are all gathered and again you would have kind of this triangular point of interest now another thing that's interesting about this image too is if you look at the horizon line back here it's not straight at all the camera was not straight in the shot but it is lined up with the gentleman in the middle where your point of interest is a my point in telling you this is this composition is so strong you don't notice the horizon being off because all these other elements are in place so it kind of take cares of takes care of itself in that regard and I think this is one of the things that Britain was so natural at again you can see the obvious symmetry that set up the triangular you know with your your vanishing point horizon lines you know basic design stuff and you have the symmetry that's set up and obviously you would think at first your focal point is right here dead square in the middle of the photograph but it's not because you have the gentleman speaking at this crowd who's who's off-center over here and it's almost the the right third over here actually on this point of interest to the intersecting golden mean if you will which actually draws you away from that see how tension that is created compositionally without being too too much it obviously retains a sense of simplicity that I think is important to this this photo as well we have another one this is 1938 this is a little more complex and this I would say is total decisive moment at its finest where you have this gentleman down here again on the lower lower intersecting third here in this golden section who's kissing the Cardinals hand obviously that's a point of impact there and you know brace on I'm sure was thinking that at least on a subconscious level he took this photo he also took the photo at the right moment so again that's why I say this is a decisive moment at its best even though the image the expressions on the faces of the people who are not particularly on the point of interest are extremely interesting but you also again if you look at direction with eyes and things like that you have implied kind of triangular shapes that happen within the composition you know you obviously have another one kind of tighter here so anyway there's there's like I said there's so much going on in here that is so beautiful that you know I think this is this in my opinion is Rosanna is the best you know very improvisational not too compositional at the same time has all those elements that make it a great photo and if you've ever shot photos and crowds before they can be they can be tricky to get anything that makes any sense just because getting simplicity with so many people's is so difficult also you'll notice the depth of field your point of focus is down here and he has this set an aperture PI 5 6 something 4 somewhere in there if 4 to where you start to get blurred out in the back but it's not too much it's it's not razor sharp depth of field by any means but but it's perfect for the image anyway we'll move on this is a later image this 1953 in Paris I believe and you have obviously a point of interest down here there's another rule we'll talk about another episode the 80/20 rule where you know 80% of the the meet of your composition is driven by 20% of the actual composition you can see that most the activity that draws your eyes down here in the bottom 20% of at least the bottom third of this this photograph specifically the couple that's sitting here embracing looking out in this wonderful view and then you also if you consider that as a point and you kind of have this trying emotion that is kind of defined also by the young schoolgirls that are that are in the front you're going to see this embrace on its work too but you also kind of have a lot of these arcs that occur down here if you were to take a compass and draw on it and this is very important we'll see another image that uses this in a minute but anyway it sets up a very strong composition this is obviously a beautiful landscape it's very sharp very detailed but it wouldn't be the same photo all the the stuff that really gives a lot of soul occurs in this bottom third down here in this triangular implicit implication of a shape so you know obviously wonderful stuff here's another image this is a even simpler where you simply have this line that's implied by the boats which divides your camp your canvas into kind of you know two-thirds one-third but you know not horizontally or vertically in strict fashion obviously you have the horizon here that does does imply it as well but that's not your major focal point on here your major focal point is these boats again the contrast the the water is very light and tone it's very white and you know you have these these guys on a gray day with heavy coats and hats and you know anyway obviously wonderful and then finally them to end on this image this is one of the more famous Brits on images and again I think there's so much going on here that is just wonderful obviously guess what's sitting right on the golden section point of interest here is the cyclist if you subdivide your canvas like this and here he is right here on this golden section here and so anyway also you see the cyclist there's an implied sense of motion in here as well which is which is extremely important the shutter speed that Brisson used on this photo was perfect if it were any slower you might have the cyclists blurred out too much and you'd start to lose the identity that he is on bicycle if it were slower you would lose the sense of motion would be too sharp he would be in - - in focus so again it's absolutely perfect also the way the stairs you know kind of are implied here you end up with these strong lines that kind of create you know this triangle shape and again you have your curve along here with the street corner which again and there you could subdivide this further I mean this is almost like a nautilus with all the geometry and shape that's going on between the street up here and the stairs and all this so again you know you have somebody in brisson who you know interestingly enough denied a lot of these things and and you know during his lifetime even claimed that he wasn't interested in photography I think it's also worth noting that at the time that you know he was the most active you had this heavy fine art movement of surrealism going on at the same time his stuff was not so realistic it was really kind of borrowing a lot of elements from classical composition and Renaissance painting and things like that so you know there's kind of a contrast there and in the time that he existed he was also more of a photojournalist and less of a fine art photographer obviously that's arguable because you will see his work in museums now but but he really you know encapsulated a lot of this this this notion of street photography and the whole decisive moment thing but I think what a lot of people look at is they look at that and they don't realize that Brisson straining you know like I keep saying I think at least on a subconscious level these compositional elements had to permeate his work they're they're way too prevalent and these compositions depend on I'm having these things in place as you can see so anyway hope that helps this has been the art of photography thanks for watching\n"