Framing

We’re not talking about composing (that’s next) but framing. Framing is what do you pick to put into the frame?

Doesn’t get much simpler than that but so many images on FB are just badly framed. Usually this means that the photographer banged off a snapshot without thinking enough about what was going to be In the photo and what was going to be left out.

The first framing crime you see a lot are images that just include too much unnecessary stuff. A lot of newcomers don’t get close enough to their subject. You’ll see this in a lot of family photos where there’s a ton of blank space around a few people posed dead centre in the image.

A fellow teacher I’ve worked with used to say that there’s a garbage can in every photo. While an exaggeration it’s still a valid statement as I can’t tell you how many garbage cans I’ve cropped out of my photos in post.

Framing comes down to do you want to shoot a horizontal or vertical shot?

What will work best?

Moving the actual frame of the photo in closer gets rid of a lot of unnecessary extra distracting stuff.

What do you want to leave in and what do you want to crop out?

That’s framing.