8 Tips for Improving Framing and Depth in Your Landscape Photographs

Raise your hand if you, like me, have arrived at a scenic vista and, standing next to the brown sign with a camera on it, have stood exactly where we were supposed to, raised our cameras to eye height, looked though the viewfinder, and taken the perfect postcard shot. While there is nothing wrong with that approach to landscape photography, there are a few techniques that you can employ to give your photographs a bit more visual appeal and, more importantly, make them stand apart from the image(s) you might have remembered when I asked you to remember your postcard captures. Here we will discuss some techniques for improving composition when framing and using foreground objects to help increase the depth of your landscape photographs.

Framing

My previous article on framing started by saying that every act of creating a photograph involves framing. The photographer employs the camera and lens to capture a certain segment of a scene—a segment that ranges from the all-encompassing 360^º spherical capture to the soda-straw view of an extreme telephoto lens. Every time you release the shutter, you are creating framing. You are deciding what to include and exclude in the frame.

Stepping away from the viewfinder, we find a world full of frames—naturally occurring and artificial. The photographer who sees these frames can employ them to their compositional advantage when capturing landscape images.

The successful use of framing elements, regardless of what they are, can help in emphasizing the subject of the image and/or enriching the composition. These elements can be used to bracket one or both sides of the image or provide a virtual floor or ceiling for the photograph.

1. Natural Frames

Depending on where you are photographing, planet Earth provides some natural framing elements. Keep an eye out for trees, tree branches, rocks, cliffs, mountains, valleys, plants, and almost anything you can see to see if you can employ it as a frame for your photograph.

Look skyward. Cloud formations can create aerial frames for a photograph.

Look for the interplay where light and shadow meet. A hard line of light/shadow can create a compelling framing element in your image as well.

2. Artificial Frames

Manmade structures can be used to provide the same framing services on all sides of an image and, being man made, they often bring straight lines and right angles—things we easily associate with frames—to your image if you should choose to incorporate them.

3. Generating Frames with Your Lens (or Computer)

Vignetting is often a dirty word in the world of online lens reviews. However, some photographers embrace a vignetting lens because this can create a subtle circular framing around a subject. If you own a lens that vignettes, employ that lens characteristic to your advantage. If you have a lens that proudly does not vignette, you may dial-in some vignetting electronically in post-processing after capture.

Along the same vein, photographers can also use graduated neutral density filters (or the electronic simulation) to bring a more linear framing element into the frame.

Shallow-depth-of-field images can provide a sense of framing, as well, when the subject is in clear focus and enveloped in a soft and smooth background.

4. Changing Framing by Changing Viewpoint

Most of the world’s photographs are taken from the standing eye level of the photographer. That is the viewpoint we are most accustomed to and the one from which we usually capture the world. Some, but not all, framing exists at eye level, but you should not be afraid to change your viewpoint in the search for frames—or notice frames due to a changed viewpoint. Kneeling or lying down, or climbing up a ladder or boulder, can not only provide a fresh and unique viewpoint for any scene, but it also has the potential to introduce new framing elements into your image.

Depth

One thing that you might notice about that postcard image we mentioned above, is that images taken from that scenic vista lack a sense of depth. Mountain range, city skyline, or lush valley images often feel very two-dimensional. While those postcard images might be fine for documenting your presence at said vista, the art of adding depth to an image can transform your postcard image from postcard to large wall print.

1. Changing Depth by Changing Viewpoint

Just like changing viewpoint can add to the discovery of new frames, it is probably the single easiest way to add depth to an image. Getting low and closer to the foreground (emphasis on ground) will add depth to an image. Also, the aerial viewpoint can provide a greater sense of depth, as well.

2. Foreground Elements

Adding foreground elements to the frame (often made possible by a change in viewpoint) is another easy way to add depth to an image. Foreground elements can include fences, park benches, rocks, flowers, bushes, and just about anything else you can find in the foreground of a scene.

A word to the wise photographer: Not every foreground element will add to the scene—and some will detract from it. Your goal is to find that foreground element that adds to the image.

3. Diagonal Lines

Another easy way to add depth to an image is by incorporating diagonal lines into it. Fences, roads, shorelines, curbs, wires, and more can find their place in the frame of an image. By their very nature, a diagonal line, as long as it is not perpendicular to the camera, creates depth in an image.

Lines in a photograph can serve as leading lines for the eyes of the viewer. When incorporating diagonal lines, be sure that they are not taking your viewers’ gaze out of the frame in the name of adding depth.

4. Diagonal Lines to a Vanishing Point

When you combine two converging diagonal lines, they can lead to a vanishing point—another fantastic way to show depth in a photograph. The road vanishing into the desert horizon, the railroad tracks converging in the distance (be careful: photography on active railroad tracks is extremely dangerous), and other converging lines are used to the benefit of many photographers.

Overthinking It All

The danger of an article like this for beginning photographers (or my students) is that it sends you off into the world searching for framing elements, objects to add to the foreground of your images, or diagonal lines streaking across every shot. Armed with the creative knowledge of what we just discussed, you go out, not searching for a beautiful scene to capture, but things to add to a common scene to try to make it more compelling.

Sometimes that works, but often, it fails.

As a beginning photographer, or experienced one reintroduced to these techniques, you need to not overthink framing and depth, nor should you force the implementation of these techniques. What you should do is add them to your visual tool kit and step back to look for them as you compose an image—but only include them when you feel it is beneficial to the composition of that image.

If you arrive at that scenic vista and you do not see framing elements, there are no beautiful objects in the foreground, and, when you kneel down you end up behind a guardrail or fence, then take a deep breath, enjoy the scene before you, and capture that beautiful postcard photograph.

What framing elements have you found to be useful in your own images? Share your experiences and tips in the Comments section, below.