Title: Photography Exposure Triangle And Composition — LearnCoachAssist

Q: Exposure triangle — three elements?
A: Aperture (depth of field, light), Shutter Speed (motion, light), ISO (sensor sensitivity, noise).

Q: Aperture f/1.4 vs f/16 — which lets in more light?
A: f/1.4 — smaller f-number = larger aperture = more light + shallower depth of field.

Q: Why does higher ISO cause noise?
A: Sensor amplifies the signal — including random fluctuations (noise). Modern sensors are usable up to ISO 6400+ in good light.

Q: Shutter speed for handheld sharpness without VR?
A: Roughly 1 / (focal_length). 50mm → 1/50s minimum; 200mm → 1/200s.

Q: Reciprocity rule?
A: If you decrease aperture by one stop (less light), you can compensate with one stop slower shutter or one stop higher ISO.

Q: Rule of thirds?
A: Divide frame into 3×3 grid; place subjects on intersections or along the lines. Avoid centering by default.

Q: Leading lines?
A: Lines (roads, fences, light) that guide the eye toward the subject. Powerful for landscapes.

Q: Negative space?
A: Empty area around the subject — emphasizes it and gives the photo room to breathe.

Q: Rule of thirds vs golden ratio?
A: Golden ratio (1:1.618) places interest slightly closer to center than thirds — subtle, often more pleasing for portraits.

Q: Symmetry as composition?
A: Centered framing works when the subject is itself symmetrical (architecture, reflections).

Q: Frame within a frame?
A: Use natural framing (doorway, branches, archway) to direct attention and add depth.

Q: Depth of field — what controls it?
A: Aperture, focal length, subject distance, sensor size. Wider aperture + longer lens + closer subject = shallower DOF.

Q: Bokeh — what is it?
A: The aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas, especially blurred highlights. Comes from lens design + aperture shape.

Q: Golden hour?
A: First hour after sunrise and last hour before sunset — warm color, soft directional light, long shadows. Best light for portraits and landscapes.

Q: Blue hour?
A: The 20-30 min before sunrise / after sunset — even, cool light. Great for cityscapes and creating a moody mood.

Q: White balance — why bother?
A: Cameras don't always read color temperature correctly. Set custom WB or shoot RAW to fix later without quality loss.

Q: RAW vs JPEG?
A: RAW: full sensor data, large files, edit-friendly.
JPEG: compressed, smaller, less editing latitude — fine for web sharing.

Q: Histogram — why care?
A: Shows tonal distribution. Clipped left = lost shadow detail; clipped right = blown highlights (usually unrecoverable).

Q: ETTR (expose to the right)?
A: Push exposure as far right as possible without clipping highlights — captures more shadow detail with less noise.

Q: Why portrait lens often 85mm or 135mm?
A: Mild compression flatters faces. 35mm or wider exaggerates noses; long telephotos compress too much.

Q: Two main metering modes?
A: Evaluative/Matrix: averages scene.
Spot: meters a small area — useful for backlit subjects or contrast.

Q: Exposure compensation +1 / -1?
A: Manual override: brighten or darken the meter's reading. Use when scene is mostly white (snow → +1) or black (night → -1).

Q: Difference between AF-S/One-Shot and AF-C/AI-Servo?
A: Single-shot: locks focus when pressed — good for still subjects.
Continuous: tracks moving subjects.

Q: Back-button focus?
A: Decouple focus from shutter half-press; use a rear button instead. Lets you keep focus while recomposing or shooting bursts.

Q: Why prime lens vs zoom?
A: Primes: wider apertures, better optics for the price, lighter, force composition discipline.
Zooms: flexibility.

Q: Reciprocity failure?
A: Long exposures (multi-second) lose efficiency on film; modern digital is mostly immune. Mention only for long exposure film work.

Q: Hyperfocal distance?
A: Focus distance that maximizes DOF — everything from half that distance to infinity is acceptably sharp. Useful for landscapes.

Q: Camera shake vs subject motion?
A: Shake: blurry whole image — faster shutter or stabilization.
Subject motion: only the moving subject is blurred — needs faster shutter or panning.

Q: Panning technique?
A: Track the subject with shutter ~1/30-1/60. Subject is sharp, background blurs — conveys speed.

Q: Polarizing filter — when?
A: Cut reflections from glass/water, deepen sky blue, reduce haze. Strongest 90° from sun direction.

Q: ND filter — purpose?
A: Reduces light entering lens — enables long exposures in daylight (silky water, motion blur).

Q: Editing first step in Lightroom/Capture One?
A: Set white balance, fix exposure + highlights/shadows, then adjust contrast and saturation. Sharpen and noise-reduce last.

Q: Lens hood — why use?
A: Blocks flare and stray light from hitting the front element; also protects the lens physically.

Q: Sensor cleaning?
A: Wet cleaning swabs if blower doesn't work. Visible spots on f/16 sky shots = dust. Many cameras self-clean on power on/off.

Q: How are full stops spaced on a modern aperture scale?
A: f/1.4 → f/2 → f/2.8 → f/4 → f/5.6 → f/8 → f/11 → f/16 → f/22. Each step halves the light entering the lens.

Q: What does the f-number actually measure?
A: The ratio of focal length to entrance pupil diameter. f/2.8 on a 50mm lens has a physical aperture of about 17.9 mm.

Q: What is a T-stop and why use it?
A: T-stops account for actual light transmission through the lens. Used in cinema lenses where precise exposure across matched lenses matters.

Q: How much light difference between f/2.8 and f/4?
A: Exactly one full stop — f/4 lets in half as much light as f/2.8, requiring doubling ISO or halving shutter speed to compensate.

Q: What is diffraction and at what aperture does it start to soften a 24MP APS-C image?
A: Light bending around aperture blades. Softening becomes visible around f/11–f/13 on high-resolution APS-C sensors; f/8 is the practical limit.

Q: Why does a smaller aperture not always give sharper images?
A: Past the lens's "sweet spot" (often f/5.6–f/8 for primes), diffraction and lens aberrations combine to reduce overall sharpness.

Q: How are shutter speeds spaced per stop?
A: 1/4000 → 1/2000 → 1/1000 → 1/500 → 1/250 → 1/125 → 1/60 → 1/30 → 1/15 → 1/8 → 1/4 → 1/2 → 1s. Each step halves or doubles exposure time.

Q: What is bulb mode used for?
A: Shutter stays open as long as the release is held — for exposures longer than 30 seconds (star trails, lightning, very long light painting).

Q: What is the "sunny 16" rule?
A: On a bright sunny day, set aperture to f/16 and shutter speed to 1/ISO. ISO 100 → 1/100s at f/16 produces a correct exposure.

Q: What is the looney 11 rule for the moon?
A: Aperture f/11, shutter 1/ISO. Assumes a clear night and a full or near-full moon.

Q: How does ISO 100 compare to ISO 6400 in terms of signal amplification?
A: ISO 6400 amplifies the signal 64× more than ISO 100, which is why it produces visibly more luminance and chroma noise.

Q: What is the difference between luminance and chroma noise?
A: Luminance noise: grain-like brightness variation — often film-like and tolerable.
Chroma noise: random color speckles — usually more objectionable and targeted first in editing.

Q: What is a "native" ISO on a digital sensor?
A: The ISO value where the analog signal is read directly without software amplification — typically ISO 100, sometimes 64 or 200.

Q: What does "ISO invariance" mean?
A: A sensor where post-capture brightening in RAW produces nearly the same noise as raising ISO in camera. Useful for shooting at base ISO in dark scenes.

Q: What is dynamic range in stops?
A: The range of stops between the darkest shadow with detail and the brightest highlight without clipping. Modern full-frame sensors reach 14–15 stops.

Q: What is the difference between a "stop" of exposure and a "third of a stop"?
A: One full stop doubles or halves total light. Most cameras make adjustments in 1/3-stop increments — finer tuning for tricky exposures.

Q: How does shutter speed affect moving water?
A: 1/1000s freezes individual droplets; 1/60s shows some flow; 1–4s gives a silky, ethereal look with smooth streaks.

Q: What shutter speed is needed to freeze a walking person?
A: Around 1/250s freezes the body; 1/500s+ freezes the hands and any swinging arms or props.

Q: What shutter speed freezes a running cyclist?
A: Approximately 1/1000s captures the wheels and body sharply. Below 1/500s the spokes may show motion blur.

Q: What is flash sync speed?
A: The fastest shutter speed at which the entire sensor is exposed at once. Typically 1/200s or 1/250s for DSLRs, up to 1/8000s with electronic shutters on mirrorless.

Q: What is high-speed sync (HSS)?
A: Pulses the flash across the shutter slit so you can use shutter speeds above sync speed — useful for fill flash in bright sun at wide apertures.

Q: What is rear-curtain sync?
A: Flash fires at the END of a long exposure, leaving a trail of ambient motion behind a frozen subject — great for creative low-light shots.

Q: What is the difference between TTL and manual flash?
A: TTL: camera meters flash output through the lens for an automatic exposure.
Manual: fixed power output — consistent, predictable, repeatable.

Q: How does flash guide number (GN) work?
A: GN = distance × f-number at a given ISO. ISO 100, GN 40 → at f/4 the flash reaches 10 m. Doubling ISO roughly multiplies GN by √2.

Q: What is crop factor and how does it apply?
A: The ratio of a smaller sensor's dimensions to full frame. APS-C is ~1.5×, Micro Four Thirds is 2×. A 50mm lens on APS-C gives the same FOV as 75mm on full frame.

Q: Does crop factor change the effective aperture?
A: Depth of field and diffraction behavior are tied to actual focal length and aperture, not the equivalent FOV. f/2.8 stays f/2.8.

Q: What is a "nifty fifty"?
A: A 50mm f/1.8 prime lens — affordable, sharp, fast, lightweight. A classic learning lens for full-frame shooters.

Q: What is focal length compression?
A: Telephoto lenses visually compress distance between foreground and background; wide angles exaggerate the gap. It's a perspective effect, not an inherent lens property.

Q: What is a tilt-shift lens used for?
A: Architecture (correct converging verticals), product photography (selective focus plane), and miniature/tilted-plane effects.

Q: What is the "circle of confusion"?
A: The maximum blur spot size that the eye still perceives as sharp. Used to calculate depth of field. Typically ~0.03 mm on full frame.

Q: What is bokeh shape determined by?
A: The number and shape of aperture blades. Rounded blades and high blade counts (9+) produce smoother, rounder out-of-focus highlights.

Q: What is the minimum focusing distance of a true macro lens?
A: True macro achieves 1:1 reproduction. Working distance is often just a few centimeters — supplementary lighting (ring flash, twin light) is usually required.

Q: What is focus stacking?
A: Combining multiple images focused at different distances to extend depth of field beyond what a single shot can achieve. Used in macro, product, and landscape work.

Q: What is the difference between AF point types?
A: Single-point: precise control.
Zone / Expanded: small cluster of points.
Auto / Tracking: camera chooses and tracks subject.

Q: What is eye-detection AF?
A: Real-time detection of human (or animal) eyes in the scene — camera continuously focuses on the nearest eye. Major breakthrough for portrait and event photographers.

Q: What is the "1/focal length" rule of thumb for handheld shutter speed?
A: Use at least 1/(focal length) seconds — 200mm → 1/200s. Modern stabilized systems let you go 3–5 stops slower.

Q: What does in-body image stabilization (IBIS) compensate for?
A: Angular camera motion — handshake. It does NOT freeze subject movement. CIPA ratings of 5–8 stops are common on modern bodies.

Q: What is the "500 rule" for astrophotography?
A: Maximum exposure ≈ 500 / focal length (full frame). 24mm → ~20s before star trails appear. On APS-C divide 500 by the equivalent focal length.

Q: How does the inverse square law affect flash?
A: A light source twice as far from the subject delivers 1/4 the light. Doubling distance = 2 stops less illumination. Critical for off-camera flash setups.

Q: What is a softbox and why use one?
A: A fabric diffuser in front of a flash or strobe. Larger relative to the subject = softer light, smoother shadow transitions, more flattering for portraits.

Q: What is the difference between hard and soft light?
A: Hard light: small source, sharp shadows, high contrast (sun at noon, bare flash).
Soft light: large source, gradual shadow edges (overcast sky, big softbox, window light).

Q: Why are overcast days flattering for portraits?
A: Clouds act as a giant diffuser — wrapping soft light, low contrast, minimal harsh shadows, no squinting. Excellent for skin tones.

Q: What is Rembrandt lighting?
A: A triangle of light on the cheek opposite the light source. Classic portrait pattern created by 45° key light placement.

Q: What is loop lighting?
A: A small loop-shaped shadow from the nose on the cheek — the most common flattering portrait pattern. Light at about 30–45° to the side, slightly above eye level.

Q: What is butterfly (or paramount) lighting?
A: Light placed directly in front and above the subject, creating a small symmetric shadow under the nose. Flattering for fashion and beauty work.

Q: What is split lighting?
A: Light placed 90° to the side — half the face lit, half in shadow. Dramatic, moody effect for character portraits.

Q: What is rim light?
A: A light placed behind the subject to outline the edges of hair and shoulders. Separates the subject from the background.

Q: What is the difference between key, fill, and hair lights?
A: Key: main light shaping the subject.
Fill: softens shadows created by the key.
Hair / rim: edge light separating subject from background.

Q: What is a reflector used for?
A: Bounces existing light into shadows — silver for contrast, white for neutral, gold for warm. Cheap, portable, often more effective than another flash.

Q: What does "shutter priority" mode do?
A: You set the shutter speed; camera chooses the aperture. Useful for sports (fast shutter) and long exposures (slow shutter).

Q: What does "aperture priority" mode do?
A: You set the aperture; camera chooses the shutter speed. Great for controlling depth of field while letting the camera handle exposure.

Q: When is "program" mode useful?
A: Auto exposure but with the ability to shift aperture/shutter combinations. Quick exposure control without thinking about either priority explicitly.

Q: What is ISO Auto with a minimum shutter speed?
A: You set a floor shutter speed; the camera raises ISO automatically when needed to maintain it. Common for handheld work with variable-light subjects.

Q: How does a TTL flash decide its power?
A: A preflash fires, the meter reads reflected light through the lens, and the camera calculates power for the main flash. Fast, automatic, but not 100% reliable.

Q: What is flash exposure compensation (FEC)?
A: Adjusts flash output up or down in stops, separate from ambient exposure. +1 FEC = brighter flash on subject while background stays the same.

Q: What is a catchlight?
A: A specular highlight in the eye from a light source. Adds life and dimension to portraits. Positioned with the light source.

Q: What is "feathering" the light?
A: Aiming a softbox or strobe so the light falls off across the subject rather than directly hitting — controls contrast and where the falloff begins.

Q: What is a beauty dish?
A: A shallow, dish-shaped reflector with a center deflector. Produces a semi-hard, wrapping light popular in fashion and beauty.

Q: What is a snoot?
A: A tube that restricts light to a narrow circle. Used for tight accent or background lighting.

Q: What does a gel do in flash photography?
A: A colored plastic sheet placed over the flash to change its color temperature — CTB (blue) to match daylight, CTO (orange) to match tungsten, or creative colors.

Q: What is fill flash?
A: A small burst of flash used to lighten shadows in bright backlight — typically -1 to -2 stops relative to the ambient exposure. Common in outdoor portraits at noon.

Q: What is a grid spot on a flash?
A: A honeycomb attachment that narrows the beam angle. Used for hair lights, accent lights, or theatrical effects.

Q: What is a "fast" lens?
A: One with a wide maximum aperture — typically f/2.8 or wider. Lets in more light and produces shallow depth of field.

Q: What is a color checker chart?
A: A standardized reference card (e.g. X-Rite ColorChecker) used to set accurate white balance and color profiles in post-processing.

Q: What is Kelvin in photography?
A: Unit of color temperature. 2000K = candle, 3200K = tungsten, 5500K = midday sun, 6500K = overcast, 10000K = deep blue shade.

Q: What is "mixed lighting" and how do you deal with it?
A: Scenes with multiple color temperatures (tungsten + daylight window). Solutions: gel flashes to match, custom WB on a neutral gray, or shoot RAW for flexibility.

Q: What is a custom white balance and when to use it?
A: Setting WB from a neutral gray card or white surface in the scene. Use when color-critical accuracy matters: product, fashion, reproduction.

Q: What is the Looney Loa mnemonic?
A: Light, Object, Aperture — a playful reminder that light × ISO × shutter time / aperture² = scene brightness.

Q: What is the nodal point and why does it matter?
A: The optical center of a lens. Panoramas stitched from rotated images must rotate around the nodal point to avoid parallax errors.

Q: What is a panoramic head?
A: A tripod head that rotates the camera around the lens's nodal point — essential for clean multi-row panorama stitching.

Q: What is focus breathing?
A: Small change in focal length / field of view when focusing closer. Cinematic and fast primes minimize this; some zooms breathe heavily.

Q: What is the difference between parfocal and varifocal lenses?
A: Parfocal: focus holds as you zoom — common in cinema lenses.
Varifocal: must refocus after zooming — common in stills photography zooms.

Q: What is the difference between a 1.4× and 2× teleconverter?
A: A 1.4× increases focal length by 40% but loses 1 stop of light. A 2× doubles focal length but loses 2 stops. Both reduce autofocus speed and accuracy.

Q: What is the largest aperture currently in mass-market SLR/mirrorless lenses?
A: f/0.95 — produced by Leica, Voigtländer, Canon, and others. Extremely shallow DOF, very expensive, often manual focus.

Q: What is focus calibration or AF microadjustment?
A: Calibrating a lens's autofocus to a specific body to fix front- or back-focus. Done using a focus chart at a fixed distance and aperture.

Q: What is focus shift?
A: A change in the plane of best focus as aperture is stopped down. More common in older designs and fast primes. Mitigated by stopping down 1–2 stops.

Q: What is longitudinal chromatic aberration?
A: Color fringing in front of and behind the plane of focus (purple/green halos on out-of-focus edges). Corrected in RAW with one click.

Q: What is lateral chromatic aberration?
A: Color fringing toward the corners of the frame (red/cyan, blue/yellow). Reduced by high-quality glass and software correction in RAW.

Q: What is vignetting?
A: Darkening of the image corners. Caused by the lens barrel, filters, or sensor stack. Often most visible at wide apertures. Corrected in RAW.

Q: What is an aspherical element?
A: A non-spherical lens element that corrects spherical aberration and allows flatter, lighter lens designs. Common in modern wide-angles and fast primes.

Q: What is ED (extra-low dispersion) glass?
A: Glass that reduces chromatic aberration by separating wavelengths less. Critical in telephotos and wide-angles.

Q: What is flare?
A: Stray light bouncing inside the lens, reducing contrast and adding veiling glare. Lens hoods, clean optics, and shading help prevent it.

Q: What is ghosting?
A: Bright artifacts from internal reflections, often polygonal shapes. Same causes as flare — controlled by coatings and hoods.

Q: What is lens coating?
A: Thin chemical layers on glass surfaces that reduce reflection and increase transmission. Modern multi-coating makes lenses much sharper than vintage uncoated ones.

Q: What is the purpose of a UV filter today?
A: Originally to block UV haze on film. Today primarily used as a protective front element. Quality matters — cheap filters can degrade image quality.

Q: What is the difference between a circular and linear polarizer?
A: Linear: cheapest, but can disrupt autofocus and metering on modern cameras.
Circular: same effect, but compatible with AF systems. Always choose circular.

Q: What is a graduated ND filter?
A: Half clear, half dark — used to darken bright skies relative to landscapes. Available in hard and soft transitions. Essential for landscape work.

Q: What is a "Big Stopper" or 10-stop ND filter?
A: A very dark ND that lets you use exposures of 30 seconds in midday sun. Used for empty streets, silky water, motion blur, and dreamy landscapes.

Q: What is a variable ND filter?
A: Two stacked polarizing layers that can rotate to vary density (typically 1–8 stops). Convenient for video; can cause cross-polarization "X" artifacts at certain densities.

Q: How much light does a 6-stop ND filter reduce?
A: 2⁶ = 64× less light. A 1/1000s exposure becomes roughly 1/15s — enough to blur moving water and clouds.

Q: What is depth of field preview?
A: A button that stops the lens down to the taking aperture so you can see the actual DOF in the viewfinder. The image darkens because less light passes through.

Q: What is live view with focus peaking?
A: Focus peaking highlights in-focus edges with a color (red, yellow) on the LCD. Common manual-focus aid on mirrorless cameras.

Q: What is focus magnification in live view?
A: Zooms the LCD image to 100% or more to check critical focus. Essential for macro, landscape, and astro work.

Q: What is mirror lockup?
A: A DSLR feature that flips the mirror up before the exposure to eliminate mirror-induced vibration. Useful for long exposures and telephoto work.

Q: What is electronic first-curtain shutter?
A: Starts the exposure electronically and ends with the mechanical curtain. Reduces vibration and shutter lag compared to fully mechanical shutters.

Q: What is the disadvantage of an electronic shutter?
A: Rolling shutter skew for fast-moving subjects or flash banding with artificial light. Some sensors also lose dynamic range.

Q: What is the "NPF rule" for stars?
A: A more accurate replacement for the 500 rule: 35 × aperture + 30 × pixel pitch (μm) ÷ focal length = max exposure. Accounts for aperture and pixel density.

Q: What is "star stacking" in astrophotography?
A: Combining many short exposures to reduce noise without star trails. Aligned and averaged, the result looks like a much longer exposure.

Q: What is a tracking mount?
A: A motorized equatorial mount that counteracts Earth's rotation, allowing very long exposures of deep-sky objects.

Q: What is "dark frame" subtraction?
A: Subtracting a long exposure with the lens cap on to remove thermal noise patterns. Modern cameras do this automatically for long exposures.

Q: What is the difference between RAW and RGB histograms?
A: RAW histogram: based on sensor data, before demosaicing.
RGB histogram: after demosaicing, more conservative for warning of clipping. JPEG shooters rely on RGB.

Q: What is "highlight-weighted" metering?
A: Meters to preserve highlights, allowing shadows to fall where they may. Useful for high-contrast backlit scenes and stage lighting.

Q: What is a clipping warning in editing software?
A: A blink/overlay showing pixels that are pure black (shadow) or pure white (highlight). Quick visual tool to find areas needing recovery.

Q: What is the "L" curve in tone editing?
A: A tone curve shaped like a gentle S — slightly lifts shadows and slightly darkens highlights. Adds contrast without crushing blacks or blowing whites.

Q: What does the dehaze slider do?
A: Reduces atmospheric haze by increasing local contrast. Often useful for landscapes but can introduce noise and edge artifacts in flat areas.

Q: What is the difference between clarity, texture, and dehaze?
A: Clarity: medium-radius local contrast — punchier.
Texture: small-radius detail — skin pores, hair.
Dehaze: targeted atmospheric reduction.

Q: What is the difference between sharpening and clarity?
A: Sharpening: edge enhancement via local contrast at the pixel level — applied last.
Clarity: tonal midtone contrast — applied before sharpening.

Q: What is the order of operations in a RAW editor?
A: White balance → exposure → highlights/shadows → white/black points → tone curve → HSL/color grading → sharpening → noise reduction → local adjustments last.

Q: What is "lens profile correction" in editing?
A: Software-applied fix for distortion, vignetting, and CA based on the specific lens model. One-click in Lightroom/Capture One for supported lenses.

Q: What is the difference between luminance and color noise reduction?
A: Luminance: smooths grain.
Color: removes color speckles. Apply color NR first and more aggressively — luminance NR is best kept minimal to avoid a waxy look.

Q: What is masking in sharpening?
A: Restricts sharpening to high-contrast edges, avoiding sharpening noise in flat areas. Slider in Lightroom's Detail panel.

Q: What is exposure bracketing?
A: Automatically capturing 3, 5, 7, or 9 frames at varying exposures. Combined for HDR or to ensure one frame is correctly exposed.

Q: What is the recommended bracket step for HDR?
A: 2 stops between frames is standard. For very high-contrast scenes, 3 stops may be needed to fully capture the dynamic range.

Q: What is tone mapping in HDR?
A: Compressing the captured high dynamic range into a viewable 8-bit image. Local tone mapping preserves more local contrast than global.

Q: What is the "decisive moment"?
A: A term coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson for the instant when visual elements align to express the essence of an event. The philosophical core of street photography.

Q: What is a "leading line" composed of?
A: Any directional element: road, fence, river, light streak, shadow, gaze, even the line of a body. Should ideally point to or support the subject.

Q: What is "convergence" in architectural photography?
A: Vertical lines tilt inward because the camera was tilted up. Corrected in post or by using a tilt-shift lens.

Q: What is the "horizon line" and why is it important?
A: The line where earth meets sky. Must be level for most landscapes unless deliberate tilt is used. A crooked horizon is the most common compositional flaw.

Q: What is "S-curve" composition?
A: A flowing, sinuous line that guides the eye through the frame (e.g. river, path, body). Classic landscape and figure-photography element.

Q: What is "diagonal composition"?
A: Placing the main subject along a diagonal line. Diagonals feel dynamic and energetic — more active than horizontal or vertical compositions.