Using clever techniques can help you craft more powerful photos, and photography framing is one of them. At some point, most photographers hit a creative lull, which can last days, weeks, or even months. Keeping things fresh and interesting will help jog you out of it. By learning to frame, you’ll start to see the environment around you differently when you’re shooting. This technique shakes things up, boosting your creativity in the process.
What Is Photography Framing?
Photography framing is a composition technique photographers use to provide the viewer with a definitive subject. This is done by adding a frame around the area/subject that the photographer wants the viewer to look at. The frame subconsciously tells the viewer that what’s inside it is important, naturally drawing your eye to it. Sometimes frames are perfectly symmetrical, but in most cases, the frame is something in the environment that can be used creatively in the photo.
Why Is Framing Important?
Photography framing is important because it pushes photographers creatively, and as a result, helps craft powerful and memorable photos. Aside from subconsciously forcing the viewer to look at the subject, framing also does the following:
1. It Creates Layers
Layers are an excellent way to make a dull photo more interesting. When you add a frame, the visual effect is that it looks physically closer to the camera than the rest of the scene. In many cases, this is true. In turn, the viewer is looking through the layers of the frame to the subject. This gives more depth to the entire image, and at times an almost three-dimensional quality. Depth of field is controlled by your camera’s aperture. This can either blur the areas around the focus point or have crisp focus across the entire image.
2. It Balances The Photo
When you put a subject in a frame, it naturally balances out the photo. Even if you’re subject isn’t dead center, as long as it’s placed properly in a frame, it will provide a sense of balance to the overall image. It does this by leading your eyes to the positive space (the subject), forcing them to disregard the negative space. Many times a frame in a natural environment won’t be symmetrical, but most viewers won’t pick up on this issue because of how the brain blocks out the negative space.
3. It Sharpens The Subject
Framing put the focus solely on the subject of the photo. It brings it into focus so your eye can’t help but look at it. You can use a low f-stop such as f2.8 or f1.4 to keep the subject in focus while blurring the frame. A low f-stop enhances the subject even more, as it separates the blurry frame from the in-focus subject through contrast. If you use a higher f-stop like f8 or f11, the entire image will be sharp. While this won’t detract from putting the focus on the subject inside the frame, a high-f-stop isn’t as impactful and contrasted compared to a low f-stop.
Popular Photography Framing Techniques
Framing can be used in any number of photography genres. With travel photography, you’re most likely going to use things in your environment to create the frame. Here are some popular framing techniques you can play around with on your next shoot.
Architecture
Travel takes you to new cities, so you’re going to have a lot of opportunities to frame with architecture. Some world-class destinations have such stunning buildings that you’d be wasting an opportunity to capture your subject by not including them. You can use two buildings to frame a subject, intricately decorated doorways, archways, windows, staircases, and even narrow alleys. It can be all too easy to shoot at random while exploring a new city. Framing with architecture can present an otherwise familiar tourist location in a creative new light.
Nature
Using natural surroundings is another way you can add a frame. Trees, branches, and leaves are probably the most common. As they hang over the subject, they provide a randomly unique visual that can perfectly frame a subject. Exotic locales and beaches have things like caves and coves which you can use to great effect. If you’re a landscape photographer, don’t discount mountainous regions. You can use foreground peaks and hills to frame mountain ranges in the distance. This technique can also be used if your subject is a valley. By framing it with foreground terrain on the left and right of the photo, there will be a stronger focus on the valley below.
Tunnels
Tunnels cross over into the leading lines composition technique, but they can also act as a frame. By putting your subject in the center of the photo, the arch of the tunnel provides a unique frame shape. Depending on your aperture and subject placement, you could even get a nice bokeh-esque tunnel behind them. You might even spot natural tunnels as well. This is evident in things like a walking path with high trees on either side, or large weeping willows like you’d find in Savannah, Georgia.
Your Environment
Maybe you find yourself shooting in an environment where you don’t have any of the aforementioned outdoor frames. Look around your indoor environment and I’m sure you’ll find things you can use. Curtains are a great way to frame up a scene, as are windows. If you’re inside a plane you can shoot the sky using the window as a frame. Perhaps you’re somewhere that has cars or other vehicles. Positioning your subject on the other side of them can allow you to use vehicle windows or doors to shoot “through”. Bridges are yet another way to create a frame, by either placing the subject on it or under it. You may even have vertical bars or a fence to use. Perhaps there’s a mirror in the room that you can frame your subject in. Force yourself to think outside the box and you’ll come up with creative solutions.
Contrast
Mastering contrast can produce extremely dramatic images. Plenty of street photographers use this in their work, finding ways to frame their subject using only light and shadow. This does require you have a fairly good understanding of how light works, and it’s contrasted (and therefore complemented) by the dark areas. But with some practice, you’ll figure out how to use shadows to create a frame around an illuminated subject. By doing this, you won’t even have to find an actual frame in the environment.
Practice Photography Framing
Like any technique, photography framing is simply a skill that needs to be practiced. Sometimes it will be obvious, and other times it will be a challenge. If you can scout and preplan your location shoots, it will give you a good idea as to what you can use as a frame. If not, you’ll be shooting blind, which isn’t always a bad thing. A lot of the best photos are shot in the heat of the moment. By understanding different ways to create framing, you can use it whenever you want to propel your photography to the next level.
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