Patent ID: 8275171

Claim:
A composition determining apparatus, comprising: subject detecting means for detecting one or more specific subjects in an image based on image data; subject orientation detecting means for detecting subject orientation information indicating an orientation in the image of the subject detected by the subject detecting means, the detection of the subject orientation information being performed for each of the detected subjects; and composition determining means for determining a composition based on the subject orientation information, wherein in response to a plurality of subjects being detected by the subject detecting means, the composition determining means determines a composition based on a relationship among a plurality of pieces of the subject orientation information corresponding to the plurality of subjects, and in response to the plurality of pieces of subject orientation information indicating that each of the plurality of subjects has the same orientation, the composition determining means obtains, as a determination result, a composition in which a barycenter of an image portion composed of all of the detected subjects in the image is displaced a predetermined distance from an image area dividing line in a direction opposite to a direction of the orientation of the plurality of subjects.