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Fill The Frame

Damien Franco | Jul 22, 2008 | Comments Comments

Natasha

Natasha

Earlier we asked our readers in the Your Photo Tips.com Flickr Group to give us some of their best one sentence photography tips and we had a great response! For the next few weeks I’ll be elaborating, in my own words, what those photo tips mean to me and how they can help you become a better photographer. So if you missed the original post you can find it at 16 Quick Tips For New Photographers.

Because this will be an ongoing series this will be where I tell you to bookmark the website or subscribe to our feed so you don’t miss the upcoming posts!

Fill The Frame

Champloo left a little more than one sentence, but that’s okay, I forgive him.  He stated:

Assuming they are very new It would be “fill the frame with your subject”.
Obviously a tip that is often broken as you become more experienced but I find new photographers often leave lots of dead space in their photos.

I think Champloo really nails it on the head here.  As beginner photographers it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly what goes in the frame and what doesn’t.

So, what goes in the frame?

Well your subject goes in the frame, whether it’s a person, animal, or plant.  The idea behind “filling the frame” is indicative of allowing the viewer to focus on the desired subject with minimal distraction.  Basically, if you get rid of all of the background stuff, there is no choice in paying attention to the subject matter.

Sometimes that’s exactly what you want.  You want your kiddo’s pictures, for example, to be about your kiddos.  Does it matter what the park looks like in the background when your really trying to just capture little Jane’s beautiful smile?  NO.  How many times have you looked at a snapshot and thought “Wow, I really wish I had picked up the house a little before we got the camera out!”  The TV is on in the background, magazines on the coffee table, and someone forgot to pick up that fast food bag off of the floor and it’s glaring white against a mostly dark image.  Now that’s distracting.

So next time your dog Rover is finally sitting still enough for you to capture that goofy head turn he gives, fill the frame with Rover’s head and you’ll more than likely get better results!

The best part is when your doing portraits.  Like the image above, portraits can really shine when you “fill the frame” with your subjects face.  To me, they’ve always seemed more intimate and personal than more traditional poses.

As always the best way to learn is to get your camera out and practice.

Photograph Natasha by Champloo


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  3. Within The Frame [Book Review]
  4. Get Close and Personal for Better Portraits
  5. A Different Kind Of Focus

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About the Author:

  • bobitoi
    I make my whole living from photography. I shoot almost 7 days a week sometimes.and huge help for me was a book called the photographers market.. that book will give you all the cash roads to make money with your camera.caderea parului
  • At first it feels a bit unnatural to cut of pieces of someones head, but with a bit of practice it can give, when used right, great strong results.
  • JRP
    Great tip that I always try to use when I'm doing portraits.

    Another added thought that adds to what the wolf brigade mentioned is to be mindful of the space you need for cropping for different size printing options. If you are too tight initially you won't leave yourself any room if cropping is needed and you'll end up with the "balding with an elongated face" that the WolfBrigade spoke about above. :)

    So fill the frame but leave a little cropping room.
  • Great post. I was in the process of posting 'Composition in Wildlife Photography' which also includes a section on 'filling the frame'. Added a link to this post.

    I do not do much portraits but with wildlife images it is sometimes difficult to get a clean and crisp frame-filling image as the subject does not always hold still. However when you get it right, the results are normally very striking!
  • Be careful when filling the frame with portraits though. The above shot "works" because there is enough detail for the imagination to complete the face, but, I've seen other that don't work so well.

    My personal gripe is where a portrait is cropped so tight that there is no hairline left. It makes the subject seem balding with an elongated face.
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