PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS

How to Frame Your Photographs

It’s all about the composition of details

Taking pictures isn’t just clicking a button. There is often much thought and effort that goes into the making of what you describe as a good photograph. The constellation of objects together with contrasting colors and shapes is what makes or breaks an image.

In my previous post, I spoke about all kinds of perspectives you can use in order to make your photographs more interesting. I placed objects in front of each other in order to get a certain result.

In this article, I want to talk about how you can frame your photographs.

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” — Ansel Adams

Rocks as a picture frame

Frames don’t just look good on printed pictures but also inside the image itself. You can use whatever nature or your surroundings offer you.

Here I used the rock arch as a framework to display our campsite in the desert.

You can use the walls of mountains, cliffs on the beach or boulders standing in the countryside. Whatever it is that offers at least two sides as a frame.

Especially when I’m taking night photographs I often try to get something into the picture in order to have a contrast to the sky filled with stars. It also adds to the perspective of the image.

“Photography is the beauty of life, captured.” — Tara Chisholm

The green frame of trees and bushes

As someone who mainly does nature photography, I don’t use buildings, lamp poles, or roads as frameworks but often trees and their green branches.

You just need to place yourself at the right angle and you can use the lush green leaves as a beautiful frame surrounding your image. It can be almost not noticeable but is just enough to have the right effect.

You don’t just need to use branches hanging down but you can use the straight line of a tree trunk to cut off the picture on one side. In a nice way.

“When people ask me what photography equipment I use, I tell them my eyes.” — Anonymous

Using windows as a frame

Another object I love using as a frame while camping is the window of a car or the window of our tent. Most of the time I have a great view from the bed while sleeping in a rooftop tent and love displaying the landscape I woke up to.

The edges of the tent present the framework in a perfect way.

Or the back of the car. While we were camping this year in Sweden, we just slept in the back of our car and put the mattress inside. We reversed the car towards the lake and this was our view.

The sunset above the lake was so surreal.

“Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” — Elliott Erwitt

Final words

There are many objects not just out in nature but in cities as well which you can use to frame your photographs. I love using all features of the surroundings in order to make the best photograph possible.

Have you ever used objects to frame your picture? I’d love to see your results.

More about photography:

Join my email list here if you would like to read more photo essays or sign up for the Medium membership to receive unlimited access to my and other writer’s stories out here (I will receive a commission fee in return).