Composition is one of the first things I look at when I'm studying an image. Maybe my art background makes me do this but for me, it makes or breaks a picture. I like imaginative viewpoints which emphasise the subject matter of the picture, and lighting which tells a story, too. Sometimes a centrally placed figure is perfect for a scene as long as you have other stuff which leads the eye towards it. Now, you may argue that this doesn't happen in the real world, life being messy and all, but actually, it does. Or rather, that's how we perceive it. A lot of research has been undertaken on the science of "seeing", and it seems to be the case that we mentally "frame" images in a way that an artist would say is "composed". Our eyes track movement and colour in a particular way, and our angle of focus is relatively narrow, so that the things we are looking at tend to occupy a significant portion of the viewing frame. It's very similar to the way we hear, in that we seem to be able to discriminate between what we want to hear, versus the ambient noise. Our brains are very good at fine tuning the world's input, and that's what the artist strives to replicate, or play around with. An artist tries to replicate this, or to subvert it in a controlled way, by monkeying around with the POV, perspective and lighting. Vision, like scent and sound, works at a very basic level in our psyche, so it's possible to have all kinds of fun if you know what you're doing. IMO, the best way to start down the road to effective composition is to view images in a dynamic way. Don't just say, "Hey, that's nice", ask yourself why you like it, and what is it about the POV or whatever that grabs your attention. Copy the old masters, copy the digital artists you respect, read books on perspective (I can recommend Perspective For Artists by Rex Vicat Cole), visit museums and study as many "classic" paintings and photography as possible.

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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