EnquireThis shot uses fairly classic composition with the horizon riding the lower-third line of the frame and with the visual weight of the building centering around the lower right cardinal point.
There's a couple of things to note about the composition of this image. Firstly, the horizon is not level. We're often told to ensure the horizon is level, but this is poor advice when the horizon is in reality rising! Here I have straightened the image based on the roof-lines of the buildings.
Secondly, having decided to place the horizon around the lower-third line of the frame I then had to decide where to place the buildings. You will note that there is uneven space to either side of the row of buildings. The initial impulse is to place the lower-right cardinal point dead centre of the brick buildings, as indicated below. This has the effect of placing the centre of the barns bang on the lower left cardinal point, in opposition to the brick buildings - this slight nuance of extra prominance for the barns has the effect of splitting the row of buildings into 2 seperate subjects; inviting us to consider the one versus the other.
But that is not what I want from the image - I want us to consider the whole string of buildings as a single subject within the landscape. To that end I have shifted the whole image to the right so that the weights of all of the buildings contribute to a single cardinal point (the lower right point) rather than being equally distributed between both lower cardinals.
Objects within the frame may coalesce into singular perceived subjects or else may dissociate into multiple perceived subjects. These subjects have a weight (defined by their size and tonal depth) and a significance (defined by their positional relationship with other subjects and the frame itself). As we move objects around within the frame, whilst chosing the POV for the shot, we experience the objects in-view as they coalesce or dissociate into subjects. It is very common in photography for an otherwise great shot to be despoiled by the lack of a single step to the left or to the right. This I think happens when we consider subject as synonymous with object - rather than seeking to construct the subject from the balance of coalescing objects.
It's a bit hard to explain, but my point is that subjects don't really exist; they are invariably abstract concepts. The photographer creates the subject by balancing one or more objects within the frame.
