Composition from above

Learning goal

In a frame looking down from overhead, you will be able to arrange lines, shapes, colors and shadows like a painting. By turning the drone on its own axis you will align the line of a road, a field boundary or a pier with the edges of the frame, or deliberately leave it on a diagonal. You will make the line where two different surfaces meet, sea and sand, forest and field, water and salt, the frame's real subject. You will see that in an overhead view up and down aren't given by themselves, and that you decide which way to show the frame. You will keep a small person standing inside a graphic pattern in their own color, minding how the water or the light changes the color of their skin.

The question

After learning the rules of safe flying, your friend sends their drone up at the edge of a salt lake. Seen from overhead, the salt pans are white, pink and gray rectangles; the earth dikes between them thin lines. A worker is walking along one of the dikes, their long shadow falling on the salt. Your friend shoots a few frames, but the frames are scattered: the dikes fall at a slant to the edge of the frame, a pan is cut in half, the worker sits in a random corner. They had seen something like a painting on the screen, but that painting isn't in the frame. How do you hunt for patterns from overhead?

Context

At the opening of this track you saw the overhead shadow, the trace of a tree, a pole or a walker in the slanting light of morning or evening that, from above, is often easier to recognize than the thing itself (Lesson H.1). In architectural details you tried making a repeating element spill over the frame's four edges to build the impression that the pattern runs out of the frame (Lesson A.4). In the abstraction lesson you also studied abstract photography, whose subject isn't a recognizable object but shape, line, color and texture (Lesson 16.10).

In a frame shot from the ground, gravity, the horizon and perspective guide the gaze: down is the ground, up is the sky. In an overhead view all of these disappear and the frame turns into a flat surface, a map or a painting. That is why composition from above resembles graphic design more than composition from the ground: lines, areas, colors and empty space.

Simple explanation

How are lines aligned?

Edge alignment is keeping the line of a road, a dike, a pier or a field boundary parallel or exactly perpendicular to the frame's edges in a frame looking down from overhead. Because the drone can turn on its own axis, however the lines run on the ground, the frame can be turned to match them. A line parallel to the edge gives order, calm and a sense of a grid; when a salt pan's rectangles are aligned with the frame's edges they read like a chessboard.

When the same line is deliberately placed diagonally from corner to corner of the frame, though, it gains movement and tension. What matters is that the line doesn't make a small angle with the edge; a dike slanted by a few degrees reads like an accident, a clear diagonal like a decision. Filling the frame not with half shapes cut at the border but with whole shapes, or with a pattern that deliberately spills over, also strengthens the order.

What happens when two surfaces meet?

A surface boundary is the line where two different surfaces, two colors or two textures meet when seen from overhead: the shore where the sea laps the sand, the edge where a forest touches a field, the line where a lake joins the salt, a road dividing dark earth. These lines are often invisible or seem unimportant from the ground; in an overhead view, though, they can be a frame's strongest element.

If a surface boundary passes right through the middle of the frame, it divides the frame into two equal parts and sets up a static balance; if it passes along a third line, one area outweighs and the other surrounds it. A curving shoreline carries the gaze around the frame like an S curve. Boundaries that change, like the foam of the waves, the bank of a water channel or the edge of a shadow, give another frame at the same spot within a few minutes.

Which side is up?

Reading orientation is the photographer's decision about which edge counts as up in a frame looking down from overhead. In a frame from the ground the sky is up and no one thinks of turning the frame upside down; in an overhead frame there is no clue from gravity. A shore can cross the frame from left to right or from top to bottom; turned ninety degrees, the frame tells something else. Shadows affect this decision: a frame whose shadows fall downward reads more naturally to the viewer, while a frame whose shadows stretch upward adds a strangeness.

A small person inside a graphic pattern carries both a scale and a story. But the colors of the water and the light reflect onto their skin too. In someone swimming in a turquoise pool, the arms under the water shift to cyan, and only the shoulders out of the water carry their real color; dark skin turns gray under the water, light skin a greenish pallor. Warming the whole frame spoils the water's color. If a correction is needed, it is made with a local adjustment only to the part of the figure out of the water.

Visual evidence

Your friend repositions the drone over the salt pans and, turning it on its own axis, aligns the dikes with the edges of the frame. The white, pink and gray pans line up like a chessboard; there are no half pans at the edges, the pattern spills over all four edges. Then, in the same frame, they turn the drone forty-five degrees; the dikes stretch diagonally and the frame gains movement.

As the worker walks along a dike, their long shadow falls on the salt. Your friend chooses a reading orientation where the shadow stretches downward; the worker sits on the frame's third line, their shadow like a line. Then they fly to where the lake joins the salt: the curving boundary between pink water and white salt crosses the frame like an S.

In the late afternoon they shoot a frame over the village's small swimming pool, with the permission of the pool's owner and the swimmers. The arms under the water of a dark-skinned child swimming in the pool lean toward gray, while their shoulders out of the water are warm brown. Instead of warming the whole frame, your friend makes a local adjustment only to the shoulders and head; the water stays turquoise, and the child's skin above the water is in its own color.

Common mistakes

Summary

Hunting for patterns from overhead is arranging the frame like a piece of graphic design: lines are placed with edge alignment or a deliberate diagonal, the surface boundary where two surfaces meet becomes the frame's subject, and in a frame where up isn't given by itself, the reading orientation is the photographer's decision. The skin of a small person inside the pattern is kept in its own color without spoiling the color of the water and the light, if needed with only a local correction.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will build a graphic frame from an overhead view; if you don't have a drone, you can work by looking down from a high place.

1. From overhead, find a place with clear lines: a parking lot, a field, a pier, a pedestrian crossing; shoot the lines twice, parallel to the edge and on a deliberate diagonal.
2. Find a boundary where two surfaces meet, a shore, a forest edge or a road dividing the earth, and shoot it with two frames, passing through the middle and along a third line.
3. In editing, turn one of the frames in all four directions and choose the strongest reading orientation; if there is someone in the frame, get their agreement and look at the color of their skin.

Check yourself

• Are the lines aligned with the edges, or a clear diagonal?
• Does the surface boundary read like the frame's real subject?
• Does the reading orientation you chose make the frame stronger, and is the skin of the person in the frame in its own color?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. In an overhead frame, what happens if a dike stays slanted a few degrees from the frame's edge?

• A) The frame looks more orderly
• B) The frame reads like an accident
• C) The colors come to life
• D) It has no effect

2. What is called a surface boundary?

• A) The frame's edge
• B) The length of a shadow
• C) The line where two different surfaces, colors or textures meet
• D) The drone's height

3. Why is the reading orientation the photographer's decision in an overhead frame?

• A) Because there is no clue from gravity or the horizon
• B) Because the drone always faces north
• C) Because frames are always square
• D) Because the shadows don't show

4. How is the underwater skin of someone swimming in a pool protected?

• A) By warming the whole frame
• B) By turning the frame black and white
• C) By raising the saturation
• D) By making a local correction only to the part out of the water

Answers

1. B — A small slant looks not like a decision but like carelessness.
2. C — A shore, a forest edge or the line between salt and water is one of the strongest elements from overhead.
3. A — Since a view from above has no sky or horizon, the frame can be read in any direction.
4. D — Correcting only the figure's visible skin while protecting the water's color leaves both surfaces right.

Summary card

• An overhead frame is graphic design: line, area, color, empty space.
• Edge alignment or a deliberate diagonal; a small slant is an accident.
• Surface boundary: the line where two surfaces meet can be the frame's subject.
• Reading orientation is your decision; it reads more naturally when shadows fall downward.
• Skin in water shifts to cyan; correct only the figure, locally.

Bridge to the next lesson

Opening the salt lake frames on the computer, your friend sees that the white salt has turned in places into a white without detail, and the shadows into pitch-black spots. Their drone's camera is small; they know that if they had shot the same scene with their big camera it wouldn't be this harsh. How do you get the best result from a small sensor? The next lesson takes up shooting RAW, bracketing and using an ND filter with the drone's small sensor.