Photo Composition: Too Much Wasted Space

I’m sure you’ve seen many photos like the one below. [Click on image to enlarge, then click back arrow to return to this post.]

Left front of truck with bad composition. (Nikon D850 with ZEISS Milvus 50 mm f/2 macro lens and Nikon SB-910 fill flash.)

What is the subject? The tire and wheel? The intruding part at the upper right (which was actually from an unrelated truck)? The gravel? Is there something important that I should be seeing in the gravel?

It was actually the tire and wheel. But if you draw a vertical line down the middle of the photo, almost the entire right half of it is unrelated to the subject.

In the image below, the tire and wheel are still featured, but now you can see how they relate to part of the truck’s frame rail and steering system, too. [Click on image to enlarge, then click back arrow to return to this post.]

Left front of truck with good composition. (Nikon D850 with ZEISS Milvus 50 mm f/2 macro lens and Nikon SB-910 fill flash.)

This photo makes more sense and eliminates unnecessary and confusing elements. It’s easy to pay so much attention to your subject that you forget what it looks like in the frame. Make sure you haven’t included too much empty space or too many unrelated elements that are not only distracting and confusing, but look sloppy, careless, and unprofessional.