Shadowing Practice: Making Composition Mistakes? Here Is How To Fix Them - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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We're all making mistakes, right?
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It doesn't matter if you're a beginner or you're a more advanced photographer.
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Sooner or later, or sometimes it happens that you are making a mistake.
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But what is important that these mistakes do not become habits and habits become part of our photography.
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We don't want that.
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So today we're going to be looking at mistakes and check if there, if we didn't develop any bad habits.
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And if we did, we will find a way to fix them.
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To do that, we will go beyond the rules.
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You have the general composition rules that we're using, like the rule of thirds or symmetry or Fibonacci or whatever.
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These rules are at the moment, they are not important.
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We will focus on other things.
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We will focus on actually what is important.
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What is important in our photograph?
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The purpose and the reason of us being a photographer and holding a camera, it gives us the responsibility to show to the person who is coming to look at your photo.
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What is it important there?
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What did we try to show?
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He is not coming to look how nicely we put the subjects exactly on the rule of thirds.
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No, he's coming to look at the photo.
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He is not thinking rules in mind.
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We're thinking rules in mind and we shouldn't think rules in mind.
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We should think what we want to show and how exactly we want to show it.
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So before we jump into it, I want to show you this photograph.
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It's just a normal photograph of two guys carrying a beer, probably going to have a nice weekend.
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I could frame it with the rule of thirds in mind, taking a third of ground, third of them and third of sky.
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But that would create a completely different photo.
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The tight framing on the bottom just give a different feeling.
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You would say that these guys are on the top of the world, right?
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But it was just a normal hill, nothing so special.
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It's just a very low angle and the tight framing are the ones who did that.
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I could follow the rule, but photographing that photo according to the rule, it would just create another boring photo.
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We don't want that.
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We want our photos to speak.
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We want our photos to tell stories
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and we want our photos to tell the stories the way we want to tell them.
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What is the other purpose when we are composing the photograph?
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We want to show where in our photograph there is something interesting
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and we want to direct the viewer attention to that interesting thing.
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Basically show the subject that we want to show.
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We can do it by many ways.
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We can work with shape.
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We can work with size.
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We can work with color.
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We can work with light.
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Even a simple gesture will do.
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It doesn't matter how, doesn't matter the method that we're using, but the idea is that we want to direct the viewer to
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that particular person or that particular object that we're intending to.
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I have a video that we will see somewhere here that is focusing exactly on that.
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How to direct attention to a certain person in a broader scene.
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Now let's talk about the second big thing that is very important.
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And it's the background.
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The background of your photograph is your stage.
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If you go to a theater or if you watch a movie, you will notice that every single visual piece in that background or in that scene, it has a reason to be there.
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It has a purpose.
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There is nothing random there.
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The job of the photography director in the movie
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and the stage management team is to prepare these backgrounds
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and create the composition in such a way that nothing is distracting us from the story.
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We want our viewer or the person who is viewing our photos, films, theater, we want him in the story.
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We don't want his attention to go around and notice something distracting and just lose interest in our photograph.
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We want him engaged.
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So to do that, we should have cleaner background.
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And that background should support whatever our hero or our object is doing.
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And the keyword here is support and not distract because the background can be our hero and also can be our villain.
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And your job as a photographer or as someone who is holding the camera is to be sort of a background police.
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You will always throw one eye on the subject that you're photographing, but then you should throw another eye to what's happening around.
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Because there can be a lot of random stuff there.
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Trust me, I know that.
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It happened to me with years and it happens to all the people
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that I teach that they are coming back home and they're finding a lot of surprises in their photos.
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Just things that they didn't notice when they were shooting.
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It can be cables, it can be poles, sticking out of people heads, garbage or just random pieces of paper somewhere.
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You know, like all these small things that matter.
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You need to evaluate if there is something that is stealing the attention of the viewer.
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Is there a thief there?
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I'm the police.
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If there's a thief there, you should go away or I should reframe in such a way that you are not there.
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It's very important to keep our backgrounds neat and clean.
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And the biggest thief of all
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that you should always be aware of are the other photographers they have some skillful ways to get themselves into our frames.
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So these guys pay special attention to them.
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We'll figure out the things with the background.
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But sometimes you look at the photograph and it feels that something is off.
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We can't really pinpoint on the problem what exactly is happening there, but it's just off.
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Something is not right.
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Well, usually when something like this happens, it's most likely that your photograph is unbalanced.
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If the image is balanced, you feel harmony, everything is okay, everything feels in in the right place and we're good to go.
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If the frame is unbalanced it creates some kind of tension.
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So now tension is not always a bad thing.
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Sometimes you do want to have some extra tension in your frame but it needs to be intentional.
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If you just don't understand what is not working there
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and why it feels weird it means that you don't understand what is happening and you need to figure that out.
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So let's look at typical balance situations.
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The first type of balance that I want to speak about is symmetrical balance.
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Whatever you have on one side is duplicated on the other side, and then they kind of balance each other.
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It's quite easy, right?
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But the other one is asymmetrical.
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You have a smaller shape, and then you have a bigger shape.
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How do you balance this?
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You know, the bigger shape will always draw more attention.
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So there is one simple trick to do it.
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You just move that bigger shape closer to the center of the frame.
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And if the shape is a person, well, just make him tilt a little bit to one side and look towards the other smaller object.
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And if the other smaller object also moves towards him, they will create some kind of inverbal communication there.
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And that's it, voila, you create a symmetrical balance of two different shapes on different sizes.
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Apart of shapes, we also have different tonality.
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For example, one part of the frame can be darker and the other part can be brighter.
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So you kind of want to have a balance of how much bright
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and how much dark and how much bright you have in your image.
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If these are equal, the image will feel very balanced.
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But if you have a lot of darkness on the top of the frame, it will create visual weight that will push the attention of the person who is looking on the photograph down, like in this photograph.
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And it works exactly the other way around.
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If you have a dark matter on the bottom of the frame and someone is standing there, that person will look as stable as a rock because the image is bottom heavy.
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And, but that's kind of a natural way of things.
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We're not used to have the rocks on the top.
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We are used to have them on the bottom and that kind of emphasized stability in the strength.
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And it works like that with any object.
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We put one big object on the one side, the attention is put to the other side.
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So we have to have something there to get that attention.
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Works other ways around as well.
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And let's look at the photo from Ethiopia that I really, really like.
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It kind of combines all the types of balance.
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You can see that the shapes are balancing each other through the frame.
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You have camel on one side, camel on the other side.
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You have a person on one side and a person on the other side.
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And the tonality between the sky and the ground, it's also balanced.
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But what is making a little bit of an unbalance here?
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It's actually they're all gazing to one direction.
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And the only thing that brings that gaze back is that little bird.
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I like that photograph.
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I was very lucky to have the bird helping me to balance it.
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The next nail that I'm going to hit hard is bokeh.
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Shallow depth of field, we're all guilty of using it.
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You know, it's just such an easy way to take any scene
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and get rid of the background or whatever is disturbing us there.
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We just make an aperture of 1.2 and voila, everything disappears.
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And our object has this, what do you call it today?
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3D pop and that's it.
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We're happy.
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This is a brilliant photo.
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We're going to get a lot of likes, but there is an issue here.
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The issue is that you are disconnecting the subject from the environment completely.
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If you're doing headshots or wedding photos, that's absolutely fine.
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But if you're like me or some of us who are doing travel and street photography, come on, we're going to all these places far, far away.
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Yes, the faces have their say, but come on, what about the environment?
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What about the sense of place where they are?
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Clicking portraits of people in other countries doesn't necessarily tell the story about that country.
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So if you want to tell a little bit more, you need to start bringing context in.
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And at the moment you start bringing context in, you will start learning more about composition because, you know, you can blur stuff out.
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You will have to deal with the background, with the distractions or whatever is there.
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And overall, relied on photographs captured with low aperture, it creates one type of portfolio when everything looks more or less the same.
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Like if someone is looking at your portfolio, he can't really know what you can do because everything is tight shots with a blurred background behind.
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And shooting that way leads you to lack of awareness to what's happening on the scene.
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You don't see the cables, you don't see the lines, you don't see anything.
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You're just focused on the one subject and try to place him in the middle or somewhere on the side.
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But that's most of the job that you're doing.
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Closing down the aperture forces you to be more intentional, forces you to think more and to be basically more present in the scene
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and of course it helps you with giving context to whatever you're photographing.
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Then you're starting playing with all the objects, foreground, middle ground, background.
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You start understanding that the images are not a single layer, that they're actually running in depth.
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There are other things there that you can include, reduce.
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You start learning composition at the moment you start closing your aperture.
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I think that composition starts with f11, not less than that.
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If you learn how to shoot properly at f11, you're on the way.
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You're mastering composition because everything becomes your responsibility.
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You're not blurring things away.
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You're taking into account the light, the tonality, the distractions in the background, the interaction of other objects in the background.
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You really need to organize everything.
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Composition starts at f11.
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Now we understood that we need to be a little bit more intentional with closed apertures.
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But now I'm going to take it a step further.
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We need to be intentional in general.
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Don't get outside and approach subject and make a click here
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and click there and without really thinking of what are you doing
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and counting on the fact that you're going to come back home, look at your photographs and see, oh, there is a nice picture here.
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Oh, there, there is another one.
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You're kind of getting surprises.
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If you're intentional, you are not getting these surprises.
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I know every time when I got a good shot, because I'm going there and I'm approaching the scene or the subject with the intention to capture that good shot.
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And that intention that I have, it forces me to explore different angles, to analyze the light, to analyze everything.
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I'm just like a scanner machine.
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I'm looking at the subject background and distance from the subject, how far he is from the background or whatever it is, what other objects are there, how can I move more efficiently.
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You know, there's a whole process that happens inside, but that process will not happen if you're not intentional.
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If you're just like, oh, this is cool.
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Oh, this is cool.
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That's not going to cut guys.
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If you want to learn to be better, you need to be very, very intentional.
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And why will on the subject of being intentional, I want to emphasize on other things.
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And it's the fear of missing out.
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Control your FOMO.
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At the moment FOMO hits you, you just run.
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You don't see anything.
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Like the intention stops there.
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You're just running after like your heart start pumping adrenaline into your blood system and you're just losing it.
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You're running and you're trying to capture the whatever is there.
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You're not stopping down.
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If you see that you're in that stage of you're just clicking one shot after the other, take a step back and say,
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okay, I am here in the FOMO scenario, I need to take a step back, look around again, reevaluate what I'm doing,
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reevaluate the subject and then approach it with a more intentional way.
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Don't give up to FOMO.
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It's a big enemy.
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And while we're there in being intentional, we should explore and we should explore different angles.
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Some things look in a certain way just from that particular angle.
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And that camel wouldn't have this tree growing out of his head if I was taking even one step aside.
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Every time you're changing your angle, you're changing the perspective, the way that the things are perceived.
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You have your subject, you have the intention how to photograph it, you analyze the light.
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work on your angles angles are important don't just shoot on
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the level of your eyes you have knees these knees bent
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so you know just take a lower angle
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or climb on something explore it you might find quite interesting things
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if you shift your angles we're also very much used to look at everything from eye distance
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so exploring a different angle and presenting something
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that is radically new it's interesting why all these drone shots you think took off
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so so well because it gave a perspective
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that was never seen before it was something new today we're already oh another drone shot it looks the same
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but when they were at the beginning it just came a perspective
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that we were not used to see so eye level is fine
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but you know try try to go
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and experiment with angles a little bit more
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and similarly with symmetry we all like this very nice aligned lines straight horizon it's very nice
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but you don't have to be straight
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and tidy in every particular scene there are scenes
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when you can tilt your screen a little bit you know the camera is not fixed.
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It's in your hand.
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It doesn't have to be always horizontal or vertical.
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You can really play with that thing.
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You can really shift the perspective and create some interesting images.
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So try that one.
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So now let's take a step back and take a rest from the different angles and being intentional.
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Well, it's still being intentional, but now I want you to approach every subject of photography that you're approaching as a scene.
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Don't fixate on the object itself.
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Like if you're photographing a person, try to see what else is there.
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What else you can include, how to make it more interesting.
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Perhaps you can create a whole photo story.
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The street photography is about that.
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It's about connecting different things inside of the frame.
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It's not a singular object.
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Yes, some people are focusing very much on the portraiture, photography, and just taking images of people walking.
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But these images, if the person is not necessarily interesting, they don't have a lot of value.
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But stories do have value.
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So try to find if there is a story there, look at your subject, you know, get over the FOMO, photograph him, and then take a step back and say,
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huh, maybe there is something else that I can join to that frame.
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So just slow down, take a breath, and look at everything as a scene and see if that scene can enrich what you tried to photograph initially.
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And you will find in many cases that it will.
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Consistently focusing on isolated elements,
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it's like shooting with 200mm and 2.8 you're just running with this close frame thinking.
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So what I'm asking you, put your mental 35mm lens, switch your aperture to f11, and start looking at everything around, not just on the object that you tried to photograph at the beginning.
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Explore everything.
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And there is one more thing that I want to ask you.
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When you're coming and you're photographing people, also put intention to your crops.
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Don't cut people's hands and their shoulders.
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Just don't do these weird crops that are deforming the body.
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I'm fine with cutting someone's head, but don't cut the limbs.
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It just looks very, very, very strange.
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And while we're on the subject of cutting, I want to remind us something else, that we should embrace details.
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Details are extremely powerful storytellers.
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You know, we don't need the whole building to know
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that there is a building there windows is like having a part of a window is enough.
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We don't need the whole car to know that the car is there.
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Having a part of the car is enough.
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Similarly, we don't need the whole human to be presented in the frame.
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The human holding something or like the human hand, it's a very powerful storyteller.
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So sometimes when you're in a crowded place
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and there is no possibility to take a clean shot or having a clean composition, focus on details.
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Details can tell unimaginable stories.
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Look at these hands, look at the stories that they tell.
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A fisherman, a rickshaw driver, a fortune teller, a garlic seller, a worshipper praying hands, hands buying something,
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hands selling something, hands holding sacred text, hands playing a musical instrument, hands of a warrior, hands of someone getting married.
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And the same principle applies to feet.
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You can line up different photographs of feet of different people that are doing different things, and every single photo of this feet will tell a different story.
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It triggers our imaginations, we try to reconstruct the story from the details we have.
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This is the beauty of being a human being.
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We have the ability to take just a little part of something and imagine the rest.
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So now from hands, let's move to something much more prominent.
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Let's speak about portraiture.
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When we're shooting outside and the light conditions are changing and we're shooting random people on the street,
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we need to pay very good attention to one thing, one thing only that will drastically improve your photographs.
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You need to pay attention on the eyes.
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If your eyes see the other person's eyes in a very distinct way,
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if they're somehow shaded the camera will not see them then you will have to push this back in editing
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and it will still never be as good
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if you capture the eyes properly
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when the eyes are lit in a proper way i saw the window to the soul
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and if these eyes also have a little bit of a catch light
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that photograph gets plus 10 bonus always look at the eyes always look at the eyes of the person
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that you're photographing try to see their direction maybe when looking to one direction, the light will not be there.
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Maybe when they're looking to another direction, suddenly there will be this catch light and you have the opportunity to capture a beautiful photograph.
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Now I know that a lot of you are photographing people in stage scenarios.
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If you have a stage scenario and the person already agreed to photograph, you are in full control.
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There is no reason for you to take a bad photograph.
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Move that person around, attach him to different backgrounds, move his face to different directions until you get the light on the right place. And communicate.
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Communication is important.
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That person shouldn't just stay in a passport photo-like scenario.
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He should be more alive and more interesting, especially the ones that have no experience in being in front of the camera.
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Talk to them about something.
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Joke with them.
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Tell them some stories.
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Get some emotions out.
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And then you will probably have a better portrait.
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And the moment the person agrees, you have him.
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And there is one more last thing that I want to speak about and this is a very important thing.
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I want you to decide that you're ditching the I'll do it in post approach
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and that request is actually for your own benefit.
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I want you to ditch that mindset of doing it in post.
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I know that this is a very split opinion online
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but my experience of many years of photography can tell you that if you shoot better you need to edit less.
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It relates to everything.
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It relates to the cropping, it's related to the angle of shooting.
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You will do the biggest effort possible, as much as you can, to capture the photograph the way you want it to be on the spot.
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If you consistently try to shoot better, you will almost need no editing.
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I often get approached on my Instagram page and people are asking me, Gil, what's your color grading technique or what are you doing here with the editing?
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Can you explain me your editing process?
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Well, there is a video of how I edit.
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And you will see in that video that the photographs that I bring to editing, they almost don't require anything.
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Just a little bit of a contrast fix and maybe a little bit of sharpening.
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But there is already 85 to 90% done there.
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If you continue walking around with the approach of I'm going to do it in post, you will not learn.
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Similarly, like I said earlier, if you continue shooting at 1.2 and with close frames, you will not learn.
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If you continue shooting focused only on the single subject, you will not learn.
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So let's summarize the key takeaways.
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Focus on what is important. Be mindful.
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Be very intentional.
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Keep a very close attention to the background and different thieves that can get into your background.
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Try to close your aperture to improve your composition.
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explore different angles, look at people's eyes, and in general, just try doing everything in camera.
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We went through only a small fraction of things that you need to know about composition, but this is a start.
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This is a good start.
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And if you follow the advice that I gave you, you will grow.
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There is no doubt that you will grow as a photographer.
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You just need to go out and shoot often, as often as you can, and shoot intentional, and photograph, improve, you know, Just do that circle of try,
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photograph, improve, try, photograph, improve.
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You will see that in one year from now, your results will be better.
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Don't expect that everything will change in one day, that you will go outside and today you will be intentional.
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You will feel a little bit improvement, but little by little, little by little.
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And in 10 years, you might be one of the greatest photographers alive. Who knows?
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We never know who is going to be the next big thing.
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So keep going, keep trying, get better.
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And don't forget to like and subscribe.
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See you next time.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Making Composition Mistakes? Here Is How To Fix Them”. This video has 339 sentences and 4256 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:33. The speaker talks fast, about 197 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| intentional adjective | /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/ | Intended or planned; done deliberately or voluntarily. |
| aperture noun | /ˈæp.ɚˌt͡ʃʊɹ/ | A small or narrow opening, gap, slit, or hole. |
| viewer noun | /ˈvju.ɚ/ | Someone who views a spectacle; an onlooker or spectator. |
| thief noun | /ˈθiːf/ | One who carries out a theft. |
| scenario noun | /sɪˈnɛəɹioʊ/ | An outline or model of an expected or supposed sequence of events. |
| tonality noun | /toʊnˈæl.ɪ.ti/ | The system of seven tones built on a tonic key; the 24 major and minor scales. |
| blur verb | /blɝ/ | To make indistinct or hazy, to obscure or dim. |
| camel noun | /ˈkæm(ə)l/ | A mammalian beast of burden, much used in desert areas, of the genus Camelus. |
| distract verb | /dɪˈstɹækt/ | To divert the attention of. |
| analyze verb | /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/ | To subject to analysis. |
| crop noun | /kɹɑp/ | A plant, grown for it, or its fruits or seeds, to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, or fuel or for any other economic purpose. |
| portraiture noun | /ˈpɔː(ɹ)tɹɪtjʊə(ɹ)/ | A portrait; a likeness; a painted resemblance; hence, that which is copied from some example or model. |
| storyteller noun | A person who relates stories through one medium or another to an audience. | |
| symmetrical adjective | /səˈmɛtrək(ə)l/ | Exhibiting symmetry; having harmonious or proportionate arrangement of parts; having corresponding parts or relations. |
| unbalanced adjective | not balanced, without equilibrium |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| step back verb | /stɛp ˈbæk/ | To stop what one is doing and evaluate the current situation. |
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| close down verb | /kləʊzˈdaʊn/ | To stop trading as a business. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| get over verb | To overcome. | |
| go around verb | To move or spread from person to person. | |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. | |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- We're all making mistakes, right?
- What is important in our photograph?
- What did we try to show?
- How do you balance this?
- Can you explain me your editing process?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if we did, we will find · if you watch a movie, you will notice · If these are equal, the image will feel |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to have · used to look · used to see |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is unbalanced · is balanced · is duplicated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | person who is · ones who did · someone who is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 107 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: intentional /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, distraction /dɪsˈtɹæk.ʃən/, fisherman /ˈfɪʃ.ɚ.mən/, rickshaw /ˈɹɪkˌʃɔː/, sharpen /ˈʃɑɹpən/
- Long words — get the stress right: intentional /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, tonality /toʊnˈæl.ɪ.ti/, symmetrical /səˈmɛtrək(ə)l/, portfolio /pɔːtˈfəʊ.liˌəʊ/, asymmetrical /ˌeɪsɪˈmɛtɹɪk(ə)l/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like intentional, aperture, viewer.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.