Fill The Frame, Make Better Photos
Powerful incarnation of a Hindu deity in a village in rural Bali.
What does fill the frame in photography mean? How can visual space and the rule of thirds improve your photos?
The camera's viewfinder is, for the photographer, what the canvas is for the painter. A fundamental aspect associated with how to frame a photograph is to fill the frame in a way that allows the image to breathe, in a visual sense, without filling it up with clutter.
But the amount of space your subject takes up in the frame has a lot to do with the emotional impact of your photo.
Lonely penguin climbs an ice covered hillside on Cuverville Island, Antarctica.
Space In Photography Definition
It’s worth meditating on the notion that, in addition to faces, trees, rocks or food, the amount of space that’s included within the photographic frame has a significant effect on the visual appeal of the photos you make.
The amount of visual space in a photograph should vary depending upon the subject and the story you want to explore.
You can fill the frame in a photo very tightly in camera or, alternatively, crop it on the desktop to better explore a range of concepts including the following:
Strength
Big
Power
Dominant
Constraint
Take a look at my photo of a statue of a Hindu deity on the island of Bali in Indonesia. It’s a good example of how the relative size of the subject, within the frame, changes the story being told.
The statue seems to be portraying a powerful manifestation of this particular deity. We can see that in the exaggerated facial features which I’ve emphasized by zooming in on the subject.
The fact that the statue is placed quite high above street level forces the viewer to look upwards, which also emphasizes the perception of power emanating from the statue.
Our understanding of life seems, very much, to be based around the notion of duality and photography is a great way by which we can explore the extremes of the Human Condition.
While the photo of the statue of the Hindu deity explores strength, power and dominance the image of the lonely little penguin climbing to the top of an ice covered hill on Cuverville Island in Antarctica suggests adversity and struggle.
It’s a good example of how a subject that’s surrounded by a lot of space might suggest a range of notions including the following:
Weakness
Small
Adversity
Lonely
Freedom
Fill the Frame via Focal Length and Cropping
Watch how the lens focal length you choose, as you zoom your lens in and out, effects both the size of important elements within the photo and their relationship with each other and the edges of the photographic frame.
The degree to which you fill the frame can have a big impact on the story you’re trying to tell. In some cases it might even change it.
Likewise, think about how to use cropping to enhance the emotive qualities of a photo and how it can enhance the story or primary concept you want your photo to explore.
Fill the frame with light, shape, line and shadow. Harpa Centre, Reykjavik.
How to Compose a Photo
The need to fill the frame with as much information as possible seemed important when I composed this expansive view of the spectacular Harpa Performing Arts Centre in Reykjavik, Iceland.
I employed light and shade together with shape and space to construct the composition.
I opted for a black and white rendering to emphasize those particular elements of composition, but also because most folks are more forgiving of large areas of blackness in a black and white photo than they would normally with a color version of the same image.
Objects exist within the boundaries of the photographic frame in a way that’s different to how most folks perceive them in the real world.
The space surrounding a focal point, and the visual and metaphorical space between it and surrounding objects, effects the prominence of that focal point within the image and its relationship with the objects that surround it.
Here’s a few examples of how space can be used to produce visually interesting images.
Expand or visually compress the sense of space and depth in a photograph
Explore the sense of space that surrounds an object
The visual tension that can be achieved through the space that separates one object from another
The relative space between one or more objects and the edge of the photographic frame
“Nothing is not nothing, it’s just an absence of something.”
Space is an element of composition that, to my way of thinking, is very underrated.
You’ll make better photos if you consider the concept of space in photography when composing your images in your camera’s viewfinder.
Fill the Frame Definition
The photographic frame relates to the edges of the image, either formed within the camera’s viewfinder or on the desktop after cropping has been applied.
These days we can take the term fill the frame in photography to describe the need to move closer or zoom in on the primary subject of the photo so as to render it larger in the frame.
“What we exclude from the frame can be as important as what we include.”
For most photos to be visually arresting it’s important to place emphasis on the primary subject or focal point in the image.
But it’s important to understand that the degree to which you either zoom in or move closer can influence the success of your photo by either clarifying, confusing or changing the story you’re trying to tell.
There are more subtle and, sometimes, more sophisticated considerations over than just making your subject appear bigger, that determine the best way to make it more prominent in the photo.
The simply action of using the photographic frame to exclude distracting information from the final image is an essential component in the composition of a great photo.
“By excluding the superfluous we elevate the essential.”
This can often be achieved by moving your camera slightly to the left, right, up or down from its current position.
By changing the position from which the photo is made you can produce dramatically better photos.
You can do so by changing the relationship between competing focal points within the frame and by visually separating your subject from a distracting background.
It’s true that you might achieve a simpler and more visually dynamic image by zooming in or moving closer to your subject.
But think about what lies just within the edges of your frame and whether or not the subject, story or theme you want to explore is strengthened or hindered by the presence of those other objects.
My point is that the objects that exist either side of the edges of the frame should impact on the actual amount you zoom or move when composing your photo.
This drinking fountain provided excellent subject matter for a study in composition.
Composition and the Photographic Frame
Some folks would refer to this action as producing a good composition when, strictly speaking, it's only framing that we're talking about.
We can use the word composition to describe the range of design elements we are able to work with within the bounds of the frame.
I’m talking here about much more than where to place the horizon or the primary subject within the frame.
Other, potentially crucial, elements of composition that should be considered when making a photo include the following:
Let’s take this photo of a simple drinking fountain as an example of a study in composition.
I created the photo at night time and made use of the orange/yellow color of the artificial light illuminating the scene.
I love how it’s turned the otherwise silver grey drinking fountain into a lovely golden yellow color while, at the same time, imbuing the darker grey footpath with a reddish hue.
Color is, therefore, the dominant element of composition in this photo. However, shape and repetition is also evident in the circular shape of the fountain and the many, smaller circles within it.
Notice how the shapes are displayed within diminishing circular areas divided by lines. It’s one way where line, as an element of compositional is used in this image.
But I had a lot of fun adding, or at least suggesting, an horizon by including a horizontal line between the fountain and the top of the frame.
It’s actually a white line that divides the walking path in two.
However, by reflecting the color of the artificial light source, the function of that pedestrian line has been disguised. I love how I’ve subverted its actual function for my own purposes.
Striking sunset provides a colorful backdrop for flowers in Kakadu National Park.
Photography and Truth Within The Frame
Just like painters I've long believed that photographers need to be responsible for every part of the image we produce through the creative process of photography.
What lies within the viewfinder is akin to the painters canvas and we need to fill the frame with care.
It’s not only what's visible, but also what's suggested or hinted at that makes for a compelling image.
I'm referring here, in particular, to that unique kind of reality or truth that exists within the bounds of the photographic frame.
I’d like to think that this photo of flowers in Kakadu National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory is a case in point.
I made use of warm sunset light to provide a brilliant backdrop for the flowers and decided to fill the frame with light and color.
The idea was to highlight beauty within the frame and also point to some kind of truth, beyond our perception and outside that depicted in the photo.
Have you ever noticed how some of your photos seem to have a life unto themselves?
While your photos are often made to document a person, a beautiful place or an event, you also make photos to record your experience of the world around you.
And the world that’s present in some of your very best photos seems to exist, somehow, outside of space and time.
In that way photos are very much like memories preserved, which is probably why they’ve been referred to as time capsules.
About To Travel?
Why Great Photo Composition Is Important
Great photos have the potential to cause people to stop, look and think about what it is they’re actually looking at.
That might be because they’re trying to work out the content of the photo, how it was made or what theme, message or metaphor is being explained.
That’s the case with this photo of warm, sunset light illuminating a pond in a village in rural China.
The abstract lines and shapes in the image are actually reeds and their reflections. Take a close look at this image, because the more you look the more interesting shapes you’ll discover.
Abstraction in photograph is all about photographing objects in a way that removes them from reality. It’s a process worth adopting as some of best opportunities for creative photography come out of abstraction.
I’ve written an extensive post on the subject which I’m sure you’ll find useful in your own photography. It’s titled Abstraction Photography: The Guide.
While I love cinema I believe still photos, generally speaking, require a different kind of consideration compared to moving images made on video or motion picture film.
One advantage of viewing a great photo is that we’re able to dwell longer on a still image compared to the stream of images we have to keep up with in a scene from a motion picture film or video.
Let’s face it watching movies is usually quite a passive form of entertainment. You pay your money and you’re taken along for a ride.
When it comes to the moving image less than ideal composition may not be noticed due to the following:
Movement of characters and objects within the frame
Dialogue
Addition of background audio effects
The soundtrack
One day soon we’ll be able to smell the food shown in a film and feel what it’s like to roar along in a car chase.
Movies are great, but they’re nothing like books. With a book the images you form in your mind are, largely speaking, your own creation.
But what about the photos you make?
The extra scrutiny that’s associated with a photo makes it essential for still photographers to make visually interesting and thought provoking photos.
To make great photos you need interesting subject matter, good technique and the ability to work with light, contrast and composition, within the bounds of the photographic frame, to produce the desired result.
Wire fence on Huangshan encourages us to explore what's inside the frame.
Photos and What’s Inside The Frame
This photo was made on the beautiful Huangshan (i.e., Yellow Mountain) in Eastern China. It was a difficult image to make with me thigh deep in snow.
While using a tripod added another level of complexity to the making of this image, it slowed down the process of composing the photo and encouraged me to more carefully consider framing.
Slowing down should encourage most photographers to concentrate on elements of composition such as space, balance, line and shape within the frame.
As a result the photo is not so much about an old, snow covered fence, a hillside or a stand of trees.
It's the relationship between these individual elements, their similarities and differences, and how they are arranged within the frame that makes for a compelling image.
Can you see how the individual lines of fence wire resemble the finer branches on the trees and those partially submerged beneath the snow.
I think that’s really interesting.
Story Telling Within The Frame
The ability for the viewer to visually move through the image allows them to take note of interesting elements within the frame and, thereby, be better able to describe the visual journey they've just undertaken.
This kind of reading of the photo requires some effort and imagination. It could even be considered as an interesting, non-traditional form of story telling or narrative where the topography of the landscape informs the photo’s narrative.
I took a lot of time composing this seemingly simple image of a broken fence in the snow on Huangshan. The notion to fill the frame with what’s important, by excluding superfluous clutter, was absolutely central in my mind when doing so.
The Rule Of Thirds in Photography
If we take another moment to study the photo made on Huangshan you’ll notice that the diagonal direction of the fence line divides the frame into the old Rule Of Thirds.
The rule of thirds is, of course, often evident in the placement of the horizon in more traditional landscape paintings and photos.
But there’s a variety of ways by which we can achieve a variation on the theme with how we apply the rule of thirds in our photos.
And who said horizons always have to be horizontal?
Other, more subtle examples of horizons in photos could include the following:
Tree trunks
Architectural columns
Roads and railway lines
Rivers
Let’s consider what the partly collapsed section of the fence on Huangshan suggests in the above photo.
With no obvious horizon in the photo the fence’s placement in the frame allows it to act as a horizon.
What’s more that fence takes the eye through the frame, from left to right, helping to hold our attention.
But, unlike most fences, this one is bent down which allows it to function as a gate as much as a barrier.
That dip in the fence line allows the viewer’s eye to more easily cross over and continue to move through the frame and up the hill. From there the dense stand of trees acts to prevent the viewer’s eyes from leaving the frame.
The Rule Of Thirds and Negative Space showcased through ripples and patterns.
The Rule Of Thirds and Negative Space
Notice how I’ve taken a non-traditional approach to the Rule Of Thirds in this image of ripples and patterns on the surface of the Expedition Pass Reservoir in Central Victoria, Australia.
The demarcation between the textured and smooth areas of the frame is also a division between detail and what’s referred to as negative space.
I think the void suggested by the negative space encourages the eye to search for information, in this case texture and repetition, in the rest of the image.
It’s another example of the idea that our existence is based around the notion of duality.
Notice also how the division of the photo into areas of positive and negative space has enhanced the energy within the frame through the placement of the imagined horizon along a diagonal line.
Notions of space and a frame within a frame, Q1 Resort, Australia.
Space: The Forgotten Element Of Composition
To further emphasize the importance of space in a photo I thought we could look to music for an analogy.
My favorite musicians seem to have an innate understanding of the need for space between the notes they sing or play.
Do you remember those 80's heavy metal guitarists who'd play hundreds of notes at breathtaking speeds? Could you hear what they were actually playing? I sure couldn’t.
From the guitarist’s point of view I guess it was all about a level of dexterity and a certain kind of technique mixed in with a lot of showmanship.
From the fans point of view I suppose the attraction was based upon the speed at which the guitar was being played, rather than any emotional response to the music.
To me that kind of playing is a bit like adolescent gossip: lots of words with little meaning.
Compare that to how B.B. King played Lucille, his favorite guitar.
What I learned by listening to B.B. King play is that it's the space between the notes that best explores the relationship between two individual notes.
Sometimes that space is short and one note follows on quite quickly from the other.
More often than not there’s a longer space between the notes which gives an expressive player, like B.B. King, time to bend or sustain the notes in ways that add remarkable color and texture to his playing.
A more soulful sound follows and connects, in a meaningful way, with the audience.
My view is that it’s the space, in this case measured in time, between two notes that allows B.B. King to play his guitar in a way that creates such melancholy beauty.
In the above photos it’s the relationship between a street lamp and the iconic Q1 Resort and Spa at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia that I’m exploring.
By employing the technique of a frame within a frame I’ve been able to contain the Q1 Resort within the visual boundaries created by the lamp post.
Likewise I’ve made use of the blue sky, as negative space, to explore the compositional relationship between the Q1 Resort and the buildings on either side of the frame.
Stunning stone Celtic cross and the dualities of detail and negative space.
Embrace Negative Space in Photography
There's no coincidence in the fact that some of history's greatest photographers were musicians or, at the very least, sort inspiration through music.
I believe it’s important that many of our photos explore a sense of three dimensional space. Put simply, by embracing the concept of space the content within your photos will be given room to stand out and separate itself from other elements of less importance.
I photographed this stunning stone Celtic cross in Melbourne, Australia. I was attracted to the intricate and repetitive nature of the interwoven details carved into the stone.
Critical sharpness was important to emphasize that detail. A quality lens, critical focusing and good camera handling technique assured I achieve an optimal level of sharpness.
But notice how the incorporation into the frame of large areas of negative space effects the image.
The lack of detail in those areas of negative space provides temporary relief to the eye which, once rested, quickly returns to examine the highly detailed areas within the stone cross.
By offering large areas of negative space the detailed areas within the image become even more prominent. It’s a great example of the dualities of texture and smoothness.
“There is a world that exists within the photographic frame. We need to pay attention to that world and allow it to fill the frame accordingly. Not just with information, but also with space.”
It seems to me that the best thing about inspiration is that it leads to transcendence. And that’s why I’ve dedicated myself, as an artist and teacher, to the art of photography.
When it comes to improving the composition in your own photos my advice is to fill the frame with what’s important.
With consideration given to space, include only what’s essential to the needs of the photograph in question and exclude what’s not.
This is a substantial article exploring a range of important elements of composition such as fill the frame, the rule of thirds and negative space.
I really hope you’ve enjoyed it and I’d ask you to share it widely and wildly. The more folks who read my articles, and the more enthusiastically they’re shared, the more great content I’m able to produce.
