We introduce a new problem of automatic photo composition,
and present an effective technique for finding good
views within a panoramic scene. Instead of applying heuristic
rules of photo composition, we propose to imitate good
composition presented in the artworks of professional photographers.
Our approach tries to model the composition
styles of professional photographs by analyzing the structural
features and the layout of visual saliency. The task of
finding good photo composition through a viewfinder is formulated
as a search problem, and we present a stochastic
search algorithm to look for good viewing configurations
and to choose suitable reference images from the collection
of masterpiece photographs. Given any initial location in
the panoramic scene, our algorithm is able to suggest a
better view that would often yield professional-like photo
composition.