When shooting snowboarding, a decent picture has to have at least some hint of movement and show the dynamic of snowboarding itself. Thus, composing a snowboard photo is important and you should try to apply the rules of composition to all your shots.

To get a better understating of why composition is important in capturing the movement and dynamic, it helps to understand that the camera captures a scene differently to the way in which we view it. When we look around we tend to give specific things more importance than others and block out the irrelevant stuff. The camera is not able to do this, so you have to learn to view a scene and really see everything. It took me a while to learn to see things like a camera, but once you start thinking this way you can compose a good image and visualize a snowboard shot before you take it.

Here are some tips to get you started in composing a snowboard photo.

• Place the rider and important objects on the grid lines (rule of thirds).
• Give the rider moving space (More space at the side to which he is going, less on the side of which he is coming),
• Use leading lines to draw the spectator’s attention to the rider.

– Simon Markhof