5 Examples of Natural Flow in Bird Photography

^{Note: This tip comes from the photography case study #3 ‘Composition’ inside Photzy’s - 5 Extended Case-Studies on Bird Photography}

Natural flow is a composition term that indicates how the eyes will tend to move through a scene.

For example, if you are in New York City, standing in front of a skyscraper, and you wish to look at the building, your eyes will go from the bottom to the top or from the top to the bottom. This scene has an up and down vertical natural flow.

Every scene that you look at or photograph has a natural flow and that includes birds.

If you shoot your photos against the natural flow, it will most likely limit your success with viewers, as they will feel uncomfortable or disconnected.

In this quick tip, we will look at four different bird photos and discuss the natural flow.

In this photograph, a natural flow is horizontal and traveling from left to right.

Tip #1 – When you have more than one bird in your shot the natural flow will often be decided by the position of the birds relative to each other and, to a lesser extent, where each of them is looking.

The natural flow here is vertical from the bottom left to the upper right.

Tip #2 – This photograph also has multiple birds. Motion is the critical factor here. Where each bird is looking is far outweighed by the strong element of motion. This could have possibly been shot in a horizontal orientation, depending on what was happening outside of the frame that we see here.

This one is a bit trickier. The natural flow was quite dependent upon how the photographer chose to use the space in his frame. The strong flow is horizontal and left to right. But the upward tip of the bird's head gives it a slight vertical movement as well.

Tip #3 – When evaluating the natural flow of a scene that seems to have a bit of both. Look at it in post-production using the Crop Tool with the Golden Spiral overlay turned on. The Golden takes horizontal lines and vertical lines and splits them in a spiral.

Tip #4 – The shape of a bird’s body is also a strong factor in determining natural flow. In the above example, a horizontally composed shot wouldn’t necessarily be bad. But it’s the shape of the flamingo’s body that makes it interesting. By going with a vertical flow, the photographer has enhanced one of the most exciting parts of the picture.

Want more? If you want to learn more about bird photography, and capture beautiful shots of your own, we recommend downloading and printing out Photzy’s 10 Bird Photography Cheat Sheets (Special bonus available now!)