Fake a frame

USE a FEW garden clippings To Fabricate one of THE BEST compositional Techniques – a Frame within a Frame

Unnatural frame 1

By framing our subject so that it’s surrounded by leaves or other debris, we can create a seemingly natural frame that draws the eye to the important part of the image. This usually involves seeking out natural elements, like branches, that can be composed to create a frame, but here we’ve set up our own instead.

The subject 2

Our subject is Clavell’s Tower near Kimmeridge bay in Dorset. A straightforward shot of the tower from this angle is rather boring, especially with that dull grey sky beyond the building. By constructing our frame, we can introduce other strong shapes and greater depth to our initially simple composition.

Frame-maker kit 3

We brought along a few clippings from the garden to make our frame, including the ivy branches used in the main shot as well as some pretty blossom-covered branches. The blossom looked too weak against the grey sky, but might work better against a plain blue sky – if you’re lucky enough to have one of those!

First tripod 4

A tripod helps to free up our hands to arrange the frame. On a windy day, like the one we shot on, it also gave us the freedom to take several shots with the branch in different positions. Then we simply piece together the strongest parts later on in Photoshop.

Second tripod 5

A second tripod comes in handy to hold the branches (fastened with gaffer tape), as it lets us raise or lower them as we see fit. Meaning that we can carefully place them around the edges of the frame. Of course, we could also position the branch by hand if it’s easier.

Exposure settings 6

The camera here is set to Manual mode at 1/500 sec in order to freeze the movement of the leaves in the blustery wind. Our aperture was at f/5.6 for a shallow depth of field, so that the leaves would be out-of-focus. And finally, the ISO was at 200 to keep the shot clean.