How to Create Depth in your Photos

How to Create Depth in your Photos

Have you ever seen a beautiful landscape, taken a photo of it to show everyone, only to get home and find the photo lifeless and dull? It is very hard to capture the feeling and atmosphere of a place in a single photograph and when it comes to landscape shots most end up boring and uninteresting as they lack both detail and depth. But there are a few simple techniques that can overcome this problem to help you create photos that draw you into the picture and are more intriguing.

The first hint to making more interesting landscape shots is to pick a subject. Maybe you want to take a photo of a paddock. If you just took the shot with out giving it much thought all people would see would be the endless field rolling off into the distance. It may be pretty but it doesn’t make for a very interesting photo. On the other hand if you have a look around you might see something to make the focus of your photo. For example, a tree or a tractor in the paddock, or maybe even an old fence post, just something for the eye to focus on. Just by adding a simple image into the scene you are not only showing the beautiful landscape but also creating a more interesting and eye-pleasing photo. You just have to remember that if you can’t look at a photo and point to the subject within a second then you need to rethink the shot.

The second hint is to think of a scene in three parts – a foreground, middle ground and background. For example think of a skyline in the city. Lots of huge buildings all different shapes, sizes and colours is an interesting subject however is it enough? To capture the atmosphere of the scene you really need to look at the bigger picture. We know that the buildings are the subject but when looking at this scene it would be best to make them the background. When you look in front of the buildings you have the river with boats and docks which show life in the city and draws interest – creating the middle ground. However if you pan back further there is the nice stone wall and the interesting spiky plant right in front. It tells the viewer a little bit about where you were standing when you took the photo and also gives you a foreground. So there we have it, we have a foreground, middle ground and our main subject in the background, creating a more interesting photograph that tells a story as well as captures your subject.

Other benefits of having a point of interest in the foreground:

• Draws the eye into the picture
• Acts as a framing device
• Hide objects or intrusions that you don’t want in your photo

Things to remember about the background:

• The simpler the better
• The sky can sometimes create an interesting background
• Anything can be a background (fence, doorway, side of a building, a curtain)
• If you can’t create a good background, blur it out

As with most things in photography there are exceptions to the rules however by keeping these two hints in mind you will become more aware of what you are taking photos of and therefore will achieve better results.

Amy is one of the team members in the Ballina store. You can see her profile here or drop in and see her and the rest of the team for advice or help.

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