NZPhotographer Issue 55, May 2022
As of December 2022, NZPhotographer magazine is only available when you purchase an annual or monthly subscription via the NZP website. Find out more: www.nzphotographer.nz As of December 2022, NZPhotographer magazine is only available when you purchase an annual or monthly subscription via the NZP website. Find out more: www.nzphotographer.nz
Compositional Techniques; Framing By Fairlie Atkinson When I’m teaching photography, a question I get asked all the time is ‘how can I improve my photos?’ This is a question very similar to ‘how long is a piece of string?’ If you have a solid understanding of aperture, ISO, and shutter speed and how they work together, you need to look at your compositional techniques next. So this month, let’s delve into a compositional technique that is simple but really effective; framing. Two of my students, 17-year-old Joe Hughes and 16-year-old Andie Hughes, have helped me illustrate this concept. From the start, let’s be clear - framing is not about putting a border around your image on Instagram. It’s about how you frame your subject in the image. Think about Ansel Adams and his famous landscape images. The Wawona Tunnel View is an image that has been imitated frequently by landscape photographers ever since. Cathedral Cove in New Zealand is photographed in a similar style all the time, with the edges of the cave framing the view on the other side of the cave. In the image below, Joe has used a basic framing concept with the side mirrors of a car. This technique has been around for a while; Lee Friedlander is known for his black and white ‘America by Car’ series and used car windows and mirrors to document his travels through the States in the 1960s and 70s. When trying this technique, there are a few things to keep in mind, as it can be tricky to get right, but it’s a great place to start when practising framing. First of all, the mirror and window need to be clean. The amount of times I have been caught out trying to snap something framed by a mirror and realised there is a film of dust on the mirror is countless! You also want to make sure your perspective provides the viewer with something interesting to look at. I rather like that in Joe’s image, we can see more of what’s in the mirror by looking at what’s reflected in the window. This is something Friedlander did extremely well in his series. There is always something to look at in the mirror, but also in or through the windows. It’s very tricky to Backward Glance by Joe Hughes 38 May 2022 NZPhotographer
get both the reflection and the background in focus. Joe has chosen just to have what is within the mirror in focus which is appropriate because the background is foliage. Friedlander kept everything in focus. To achieve a shot like this, you need to look at focal length and aperture. A large aperture (low f stop number) will generally mean a shallow depth of field where the subject is in focus, and the background is blurred. A deep depth of field means everything is in focus, and usually, that means a high f stop number. Joe’s image is on the shallower end which also means he was quite close to his subject. Using the world around you is a great way to frame your subject. Look through your lens and move it around to see if you can frame your subject with tree branches, foliage, buildings, or even fence posts, as Andie has done in the image below. Looking out at a subject through a window or door is also a natural way to frame something, and if you can get the foreground and background in focus like Yasuhiro Ishimoto does in his Katsura Villa portfolio, you add an extra dimension to the image with an image full of depth and layers. Andie’s image sits near the shallow end when it comes to depth of field. If she had shot this on a higher f stop number and increased the ISO, she would have had more of the fence in focus, but this was not what she wanted to achieve, so she shot with a wider aperture and sought to frame her subject by the foliage. It also comes down to your lens. If you are shooting with a landscape lens like the Nikon or Canon lenses that have a 10-20mm focal length, you will usually have a short focal length and deeper depth of field versus a telephoto lens like the Tamron 150-600mm, which will allow you greater distance but shallower depth of field. If you think about the wildlife photographers you have seen out and about, they are often hefting enormous telephoto lenses. In contrast, a landscape photographer often sports a sturdy tripod and a shorter, fatter lens. Andie did not have a landscape lens and may have found it difficult without one to get all of this image in sharp focus just by adjusting her settings. That being said, I like the blur and the leading lines the fences and path provide to her subject. The foliage provides a lovely vignette-style frame too. Lastly, let’s look at an image I shot last year for the Kāpiti College show Chicago. The performers were at the back of a deep stage on scaffolding, and I was right at the back of the theatre. I was shooting with my favourite lens, the Nikkor 70-300mm, on my Nikon D850. I needed a wider angle lens at the time but didn’t have one with me, so I decided to use the shadow to frame Adventures by Andie Hughes NZPhotographer May 2022 39
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Compositional Techniques; Framing<br />
By Fairlie Atkinson<br />
When I’m teaching photography, a question I get asked<br />
all the time is ‘how can I improve my photos?’ This is a<br />
question very similar to ‘how long is a piece of string?’<br />
If you have a solid understanding of aperture, ISO, and<br />
shutter speed and how they work together, you need<br />
to look at your compositional techniques next. So this<br />
month, let’s delve into a compositional technique that is<br />
simple but really effective; framing. Two of my students,<br />
17-year-old Joe Hughes and 16-year-old Andie Hughes,<br />
have helped me illustrate this concept.<br />
From the start, let’s be clear - framing is not about<br />
putting a border around your image on Instagram. It’s<br />
about how you frame your subject in the image. Think<br />
about Ansel Adams and his famous landscape images.<br />
The Wawona Tunnel View is an image that has been<br />
imitated frequently by landscape photographers ever<br />
since. Cathedral Cove in New Zealand is photographed<br />
in a similar style all the time, with the edges of the cave<br />
framing the view on the other side of the cave.<br />
In the image below, Joe has used a basic framing<br />
concept with the side mirrors of a car. This technique<br />
has been around for a while; Lee Friedlander is known<br />
for his black and white ‘America by Car’ series and<br />
used car windows and mirrors to document his travels<br />
through the States in the 1960s and 70s.<br />
When trying this technique, there are a few things to keep<br />
in mind, as it can be tricky to get right, but it’s a great place<br />
to start when practising framing. First of all, the mirror and<br />
window need to be clean. The amount of times I have<br />
been caught out trying to snap something framed by a<br />
mirror and realised there is a film of dust on the mirror is<br />
countless! You also want to make sure your perspective<br />
provides the viewer with something interesting to look<br />
at. I rather like that in Joe’s image, we can see more of<br />
what’s in the mirror by looking at what’s reflected in the<br />
window. This is something Friedlander did extremely well<br />
in his series. There is always something to look at in the<br />
mirror, but also in or through the windows. It’s very tricky to<br />
Backward Glance by Joe Hughes<br />
38 <strong>May</strong> <strong>2022</strong> <strong>NZPhotographer</strong>
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