Composition. Any time you want to make a picture, you have to consider a couple of things. What you want to be in the picture. And more importantly what you want to leave out of the picture. Put another way, it is not just about what you place within the frame of the camera's viewfinder; just as important is what you decide to leave out of the picture.

We are surrounded by a cluttered world, take a look around and you will see. Take any scene, and however photogenic the location, there are large parts of the scene which you would just not want to include in the scene. Examples would be large electric poles jutting up into the sky, overhead wires, junk dumped outside, unwanted protrusions of any kind disrupting the scene, or just extra people and things cluttering the vicinity around your subject of interest. This we do not want to include in the scene. If we do as many point-and-shoot photographers do, just shoot what we see before us, we are likely to end up with a disappointing image. The shot fails because it lacks emphasis.

What you have to remember is this. The first rule of composition - try to simplify the scene. Your eye is unique in a way - it can scan this way and that and pick out objects of interest to look at for longer than others. The camera cannot do this ' it shows everything. Unlike a painter, you cant just leave out the distracting, unwanted, elements. What you will need to do is use the lens and the viewpoint to create an image that is as free from mess as possible. Think of the picture as a story, and use composition to make the tale as easy to understand as you can.

In most cases your pictures will become stronger if you frame the shot so that there is only one main focal point. Often, you can frame a subject so that it appears alone in the frame; however, if you include further elements, these should complement the main subject, adding to the detail of the story, rather than competing for our attention.

Texture is the picture element which tells you what a subject would be like to feel. It gives the picture that quality which helps you differentiate the rough from the smooth, to tell if it would be soft or hard. It is the indentations on the surface that give this information, and it is their presence in a picture which can be shown up by a pattern of shading.

Texture is, in a sense, just like form, only on a smaller scale. Both rely on lighting to provide shadows and highlights across the surface of the subject. For texture, you would get the maximum benefit if you can getthe pits and furrows of the surface to be in the deepest shade possible. This is possible if you use raking light which is light that hits the surface from as oblique an angle as possible. If you can manage side-lighting this could be the perfect solution. And for vertical surfaces, lighting that is directly overhead (top-lighting) can also work well.

Because texture tends to be found on a minimum scale, and relies on good resolution to be seen, it is best accentuated by getting in close to the subject, otherwise the texture can be lost. Sometimes this will mean using a long telephoto zoom setting, but more frequently it involves whatever macro facilities you have available to decrease the focusing distance. Once you have the picture cropped in tight, simple subjects such as the grain of a piece of wood, or the peeling paint on a window, or the fibres ina bath towel - all can make fascinating abstract studies.

If you take a composition and consider all the structural elements within it, perhaps the least obvious to appreciate within it would be pattern. Although we all understand what pattern means, it is kind of hard to see how it is relevant to picture-taking.

There's patterns all around us ' not just on the wallpaper on your screen, tiles on your floor or the shirt you may be wearing. It is found in nature; in the repeated shapes of leaves on a tree, or the rows of plants in an estate . It is found in the bricks of every wall, and even in junkyards. Take how grocery shelves are stacked, or the contents of every item or packet that you find there. Pattern is so much around us that, for most of the time, we just don't notice it.

And it is this level of comfort that we have with patterns that can be used as a useful tool in compositions. By placing similar or identical subjects within the same frame, we can create a busy image, but the arrangement is still simple enough to result in a successful shot.

You can use the selective viewpoint of the camera so that pattern can be isolated in a such a way that it can be seen afresh. You could experiment to any extent ' using a zoom and closing in sufficiently, even a pile of empty bottles or a heap of paperclips can be made to look interesting.

At the same time, pattern that is too uniform, can end up looking rather dull, so you need to find ways to present the pattern in an interesting way. You could use it as just one of the compositional elements to create a backdrop or a foreground that acts as a foil to something else in the frame. You could also look at ways to break down the pattern, for example, a pile of apples could be made more photogenic by using a wide-angle lens and shooting up close so one of the apples appears larger than the others, or you could try putting a red apple in a pile of green apples so that you have an obvious focal point for the picture.

As far as lighting for patterns goes, there is no set, "ideal" lighting for patterns, as this relies on repetition of one or more of the other elements. Whether the pattern relies more on repeating outlines, forms, textural detail, or color will help decide the best lighting setup.

Shape is perhaps the most important element in identifying a subject; but in photography, it is important to distinguish between two-dimensional and three-dimensional shape. Stressing the two dimensional shape, or outline, of a subject can mean that flat photographs look two-dimensional. Three-dimensional shape or form is all-important as it helps inject information about depth into our pictures. The shadows in a picture provide clues about the three-dimensional form; if some surfaces are in the shade, while others are lit, we know that they are at different angles to the light. Round surfaces, meanwhile, can be identified by a gradual change in tone. It is essential to emphasize form in most types of photograph, because otherwise a subject can end up looking like a lifeless cardboard cutout. The direction of the lighting that works best will depend upon the surfaces of the subjects, but in general sidelighting works best.

Outline can be emphasized to depict a subject with simplicity, but by doing so, information about form can sometimes be lost. The classic example of a photograph that shows shape is the silhouette, but how good this actually proves at identifying the subject depends upon the camera angle. For example, a face can be recognized better when seen in profile than when seen head-on. A way to stress the shape of a subject is to shoot it against a light, uncluttered background, so that the outline can be seen clearly, and so that backlighting is not essential.

If you were to identify the one element that gives life to a picture it would have to be color. Color is very easily the most powerful of the five fundamental elements (Color, form, shape, pattern and texture).

Colors have a life. They are living breathing beings that can influence the way you look at the world. Some colors will attract the eye more than others. These colors will always make an impact and dominate in a picture. For example red. This will leap out of the photograph and bite you on the nose. As also yellows, pinks and other bright colors ' they will always attract attention.

Then there are the sober ones, the ones which will draw a subtler emotional response from you. These can be used in combination. It's like when you are painting a room, some colors and shades go together well, while others will clash. This essentially means that you have a choice. You could frame your picture using a restricted selection of colors and create a harmonious, romantic picture. Or you could try and create maximum impact with colors that create maximum contrast.

A very important thing to realize is that color is highly dependent on lighting. You can control intensity and shade of color to a great extent during post-production but you have to realize that lighting plays a big part in how colors are rendered. If you are looking for a high degree of color saturation, the best way is to shoot with the sun behind the camera. If you use a back light and shoot against the light, colors will be at their weakest. This is something you could try when you want to subdue the riot of colors that may exist in a subject.

When you start exploring the world of photography, there will be times when you shut off the outside world and take a walk down a long corridor lined on both sides with portraits that explain the mysteries of the world to you. Here you will find the answers to all the questions that you may have including how to make a million bucks with that one magical photograph. Chances are that you will not find such answers, but you could take that walk anyhow. It helps find that occasional moment of solitude and peace in this otherwise noisy and cluttered world.

Coming back to the here and now, and commenting further on “Seeing The Picture”, there are five fundamental elements that define how a subject or a part of the scene looks like. These are color, form, shape, pattern and texture. Think of these as the structural elements that get used in the picture. They could exist as a collective, in smaller groups or individually. These are usually used in combination, but if you wanted you could create much stronger pictures by framing your shot so as to focus on and emphasize just one of these elements.

I will talk in a little more detail about these elements in subsequent posts. For now, I think I will defocus and take a walk down that long corridor.

For those who like to dig into historical facts and trivia - heres one for you. Which was the first - the very first - camera in the world? Maybe you know the answer, maybe you dont. Dont worry - its not something which is going to decide the course you set for the rest of your life. Like I said, it was just a trivia question. 

If the question above did manage to spark off just a tiny bit of curiosity, then maybe you need to read on. 

Photography. Its all about making pictures. Images. Capturing that moment in time. Memories. Thoughts. Whatever. Sure its all that. But its also a little more. And that little bit more is all about seeing the picture.

Come to think of it - what is the question most frequently asked of you if you are spotted with a camera in your hand? How many megapixels on that one? The single one most frequently asked question. And the arch of the eyebrows is directly proportional to the number in your answer. Sophistication in a camera is most commonly associated with the pixel count. However theres much more to it than that. Anyway, we will not get into those details here - there is enough material on that to fill many libraries.

Before I ramble off into the higher layers of the atmosphere, essentially what I am trying to get around to saying is that it does not matter how sophisticated your camera is ' you still need to decide in which direction you are going to point the damn thing and when you are going to release the shutter. This world is a world of picture possibilities - some being more promising than others.

Heres the thing. To learn to take great photographs essentially means learning to see in a different way. Our vision is one hell of an active thing, constantly searching a scene for information and processing it to see what needs to be seen. Photography is all about breaking down such scenes into single, static shots. Its about taking a three-dimensional reality and turning it into a two-dimensional reality. And somewhere while you are doing all this, it is about realizing that lighting is the secret ingredient that turns the mundane everyday world into the magical one.

Skills required for photography can be learned. But photography is not just about following rules, it is also about personal ex-pression. Your pictures show your view of the world, and your own take on things. Its how you exist and perceive what goes on around you. Learning all this, as you gain confidence in composition and learn to use lighting, you can develop your own, individual style and use it to talk to the world. And that my friend, like the wise one said, is what its all about.