SECTION HEAD
The
Mission
- Learn several ways to
frame foreground
interest in photos
Time
- Two hours
Skill level
- Intermediate
Kit needed
- Tripod
- Wide-angle lens
- Six- or 10-stop ND filter
Feast fore the eyes
Looking for ways to improve your landscapes? Try framing
up foreground interest - James Paterson det a i l s ho w...
In the last issue we looked at
how to cheat at composition by- among other things – faking
a foreground. This issue, we
redress the balance by exploring
natural ways to compose a scene.
Over the next few pages we’ll
explore a few techniques for
making use of foreground
interest in landscape
photography. While in search
of the perfect foreground we’ll
encounter core landscape skills
like depth of field control, long
exposures and focus stacking.
But what exactly is foreground
interest, and why is it so useful?
We may come across a scene- perhaps some distant
mountains or a silhouetted castle - that is initially picturesque. But
a straightforward photo may look
a bit underwhelming. By framing
the scene to include close-up
details or objects in the fore- as
well as the background, we can
create a sense of depth and draw
the eye towards those elements.
It’s about crafting a composition
in layers, so that we have a fore-,
mid- and background. This isn’t
hard, but there’s more to it than
plonking a rock in front of the
lens. The scene should be
composed in such a way that
everything works in harmony.
There’s little point in framing
an interesting foreground if the
distant scene looks bland, so we
headed to stunning Bamburgh in
Northumberland. The castle
overlooking the beach offered the
perfect focal point for a variety of
seascapes with all manner of
interesting foregrounds.THE BIG PROJECT
Projec t^ Seven:^ The^ big^ proje
c t
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