Lighting, colours and composition play a critical part in keeping the viewer's attention.

Compostion is fundamental to this, taking the viewer's gaze around the image leading them to where you want them to go with their eyes coming to stop and focus, at the place that is most important to the person taking the picture. If you are promoting or selling something then this will be the branding logo or the most important part of the object that you wish to display.

In art or photography there is a rule which is applied-known as the “rule of thirds”.

With this you would divide your image area up into 3 equal parts vertically and horizontally, these lines will intersect, where they intersect are where your core area of interest would lie. Only 1 of these 6 points should be used as the viewer will be confused as to what they are supposed to be looking at. While it is acceptable for parts of the subject matter to be on these points it is important to:

A: Not have them in as sharp focus as your logo etc or
B: Not have them quite as prominently placed in the shot.

Please remember that all rules are meant to be broken, and some of the world’s greats achieve the best results by doing exactly this!

Regards,

The Digipackshot Team!
18th June 2007