Introduction
The emotions that you manage to capture and share in your photos are in my eyes the only criterion for making remarkable photos. I designed a 6-step method to learn photography by being focused on the emotional load you can bring in your images. Composition is the 3rd step to achieve this. Various composition techniques exist, tight framing / wide framing is one of the most common but always effective.
The Influence of Tight Framing / Wide Framing on Emotions
A tight framing will put a frame very close around your subject. The subject will almost touch the edges of the photo, or the subject will be even cropped slightly by the edges. This type of framing is to be preferred if your subject is in itself particularly singular because of its expression, its details, its form, its colors or its patterns for example. The subject is self-sufficient to carry a strong emotional charge for you.
A wide framing will on the contrary move away the edges of the photo from the subject. It leaves room for the subject’s environment to allow other composition techniques to be expressed. Having a wide frame allows to express often emotions based on sadness like pensiveness / dreaming.
Finally, there is the medium framing: neither tight nor wide. It is a framing that you should be wary of, because if you do not use other techniques of composition stronger, your composition will remain banal.
How to Make a Tight Framing or a Wide Framing?
A framing, tight or wide, depends first on the angle of view of your camera. The angle of view only depends on 2 shooting parameters:
- Your distance from the subject
- The focal length of your lens: wide-angle, standard or tele.
For a tight framing, the further away you are from the subject, the more you need to have a long focal length (telelens). For a wide framing, the closer you are to the subject, the more you need to have a short focal length (wide-angle lens).
But you can also impose a tight framing at the development stage by cropping, if you have enough image resolution regarding the presentation you are envisioning.
Do you think you are framing tightly enough your subject in your photos? Are you often trapped by an average framing that makes no choice? Have you tested a real wide framing, do you find it expressive? Leave me your comment, I will answer with pleasure.
Let’s Go On Together!
Learn how to photograph with my 6-step method to make your photos first with your emotions. A powerful and intuitive approach that frees you from tools and techniques.
Then understand why composition in photography is essential in the expression of your emotions and explore these composition techniques:
1. Compositions with the frame:
- Off-center Subject with the Rule of Thirds
- Off-center Subject with the Golden Spiral (coming soon)
- Tight Framing, Wide Framing (this post)
- Portrait Orientation, Landscape Orientation
- Square, Academic and Panoramic Aspect Ratio
2. Compositions in space that play on the orientation, the depth and the volume of the subject:
- High Camera Angle, Low Camera Angle
- Exaggerated Perspective, Compressed Perspective (coming soon)
- Foreground, Midground and Background Stacking (coming soon)
3. Compositions with the content:
- Guideline and Line of Force (coming soon)
- Void and Negative Space (coming soon)
- Compositions with Contrast: Tone, Color, Shape and Patterns (coming soon)
You can also find practical composition tips with your smartphone.
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