Inclusion and Exclusion

It was overcast on the morning that marked our second week in Paris. We chose to make this a lazy day that involved sleeping in late and not adhering to any particular schedule. There were no must-see destinations and as a result, we were not busily checking the clock or submitting a request for an Uber.

By the time we left the hotel, we were ready for lunch and we walked to a restaurant in the Latin Quarter. As we sat down, I noticed the street had been blocked off and there was a police presence. It did not seem to involve anything bad because the officers appeared relaxed as they talked among themselves.

I then saw a procession of people moving toward us led by priests and altar boys. My wife took one look at me and said she would place my lunch order for me. She knew exactly where I was going.

The procession stopped in front of the Fontaine Saint-Michel where people created an open space in which the priests and other officiates began a service. One of the boys carried a banner of the Virgin Mary and I quickly determined that this was a celebration of the ascension of the mother of Jesus.

I weaved my way through the crowd making photographs, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. While there were many people making images on the periphery, I wanted my images to be more intimate and this required me to be within the crowd rather than outside of it. I was using my Fujifilm x100s, which provides a single focal length, the equivalent of a 35mm lens, and I was able to move in close without becoming a distraction.

At first I focused on the ceremony itself, but then I switched my focus to the parishioners. As they sang and prayed, I moved through the public demonstration of faith and devotion. I wondered whether I could capture that sentiment in a photograph. I had captured images that included the religious iconography, which helped differentiate this scene from just a random crowd of people. But could I do something that did not rely on the banners, the cross, or the priests’ or nuns’ garments to capture what was special about this moment?

I moved outside of the gathering and tried to determine a new position from which to photograph when people got down on their knees in supplication. I was drawn to an older man in a black suit who knelt at a curb, his hands clasped behind his back. I liked the contrast of the white cuffs of his shirt against his black suit, as well as the gesture of his interlocked fingers. I moved and made several images that isolated those elements in the frame.

I knew that the image did not tell the story of the moment, so I pulled back and began observing the other people in the man’s immediate vicinity. There were two women who were also kneeling on either side of him, while another woman remained standing in front of them. I realized that if I included all four subjects in the frame, I would more accurately capture the solemnity of the moment. I took a few steps back and framed the composition so that each figure was cleanly defined within the frame. The clenched hands were still the anchor of the photograph, but now they included much more context. This became the image that I had been hoping for.

The Frame is Yours

To produce great photographs and to do so consistently requires you to make a series of choices, including your choice of focal length, where to stand, whether to orient your camera vertically or horizontally, and what your point of focus will be. All of these are decisions made by you when making a photograph. But to me the most important consideration that you make as a photographer is what you choose to include and exclude from the frame.

When you look at the world with your naked eye, everything is equal. Your eyes will flit around a scene and you will focus your attention on one thing and then another. If you see something of interest, you may appreciate it, and if you are with someone, you will nudge them and point it out to them. But you are not only seeing that thing. You are also hearing and smelling and touching the things around you. You experience the moment. That is not the case with a photograph, which limits you to a single sense.

In the context of a photograph, the whole world is encapsulated into that single frame. The world begins and ends there. The experience that is derived from that photograph succeeds or fails on the various visual elements that find a home in that frame. And so, as the photographer, it is your responsibility to be aware of those things when you compose your photograph.

As I often tell my workshop students, you own the frame. Everything that finds a home in your photograph is your responsibility, so own it. Own the frame. Failing to do so just increases the chance that your photograph will be weakened or fail completely.

Like me, you have made a photograph that you thought would be great only to discover later that there were elements in the background or at the edges of the scene that ruined the shot. It was the tree immediately behind the subject that looks like it’s growing out of the subject’s head. It was a bright-white van that suddenly appeared at the edge of the frame. It was that attention-seeking relative who was in the background, mugging for the camera. Whatever form it took, it was enough to ruin the image. We can only look at that image in disappointment for what it could have been.

So you have to own the frame and be conscious of it until you make the photograph.

When I photographed this play of shadows on a blue wall, I had a lot of choices I needed to make. Do I shoot it horizontal or vertical? Either choice resulted in different elements being included and excluded from the frame. When I tried horizontal, I also thought about whether to include someone walking into the scene. Do I use their whole body or just a leg or a shadow? When I went with the vertical composition, I worked on how much of the triangular shadow to include in the upper-left corner and how much spacing to allow on the right edge of the frame.

This image was the result of a series of microadjustments, some so small that one frame is almost imperceptibly different from the frames just before and after it. But each choice was an important one for me and eventually led me to the final photograph.

Analyzing the Frame

Figuring out what to include and what to exclude from the frame is more than just settling on a subject. It is also a question of how everything that finds a home in the composition serves the photograph. I always ask myself whether the other elements within the frame serve my subject or story or detract from it. If it is the former, it stays in. If it does not, I find a way to get rid of it.

Once I have chosen a subject, I immediately assess what is behind and in front of my main subject. Are there things in either position that complement the subject or the moment? Are there elements that play off the subject in some way or help to provide some context, such as a sense of place or time? Does the light, shadow, or colors help to better define the subject? Or are these things making it hard to read my subject and the gesture? Do the elements in the background compete with the subject for the viewer’s attention?

I ask these questions while looking at both the foreground and background, and also at the edges of the frame. I start from the 12 o’clock position and move clockwise around the frame, paying careful attention to elements that intrude into the frame and composition. I find that things at the edges of the frame often prove the most problematic.

This scanning of the frame allows me to avoid the mistake of being visually myopic, where my attention is solely on my subject to the exclusion of everything else. By paying attention to every millimeter of the frame within my viewfinder or LCD, I avoid those annoying surprises that are only discovered hours later when the image is pulled up on the computer screen.

This pattern of looking at the foreground, background, and periphery of the frame does not come naturally. We are used to seeing through the camera in the same way that we look at the world, with a democratic eye. But as the photographer that is trying to express something in a photograph, you have to be conscious of more than just your subject.

The nonprofit that I mentioned at the beginning of chapter 6 also teaches girls about organic gardening and working with farm animals. The photograph on the opposite page was an important part of the story that I wanted to tell. It includes the instructor teaching the girls about the plants they were growing, and also features one of the animals they were responsible for. The choice of where to stand for this shot was inspired by the story I was trying to tell with a single photograph. I was aware of the white lawn chair in the frame. Aesthetically, I did not love having it there, but I felt that it held little visual weight compared to the animal in the foreground.

Though this image is successful, I did notice later that on the far-right edge of the frame, I included the hand of one of the girls, and on the far-left edge you can see a portion of a white sheet of paper secured to the gate. Both are small distracting elements that I would normally hope to see and exclude from my composition, but which thankfully do not diminish the impact of the photograph. Though I would crop the image to eliminate those elements, it serves as a reminder of how I must evaluate the edges of my frame.

Identifying Distractions

A way to develop your sensitivity to potential distractions is to use your understanding of the visual draws of light and shadow, line and shape, color, and gesture. Just as you have learned that these elements can help you build your photograph around your subject, these very same qualities can weaken your photograph when possessed by secondary elements within the frame. The visual draws can draw one in, but they can also draw one away.

For example, I hate white T-shirts and white cars. They are everywhere, and I feel that they are always waiting in the wings, like some pernicious gremlins, ready to ruin my photographs. When they find their way into a photograph, that bright white element pulls the viewer’s eye in its direction. It becomes the brightest element in the frame and subsequently competes with my subject for the viewer’s attention. There ought to be a law against them.

That distraction could also be a strong saturated color or pattern or area of contrast. It is the tree branch intruding from the left of the frame creating a strong point of contrast. It is the store signage behind the subject with its vibrant colors and bold text. It is the complex lines and shapes created by the street scene itself. Sometimes it is one of these things and other times it is all of these things. Whatever it is, you have to train yourself to be aware of distracting elements when making the photograph and not place your hope on excising them later in Photoshop.

When I encountered this young artist in Johannesburg, it was at a busy street fair. There was an abundance of activity with vendors, locals, and tourists moving up and down the street. After I chatted with him, I asked him if I could make his portrait and thankfully he agreed.

If I had photographed him where I initially found him, the background would have been cluttered with numerous vendors, street signs, and people. I did not want this to be a storytelling image, but rather an exploration of this young man’s strong features and style. I noticed a wall with interesting textures and colors and I posed him there, taking advantage of the two white rectangles that I made sure were positioned on either side of him. These helped to frame him within the composition.

The strong repeating pattern of the brickwork provided an interesting setting for the portrait without being distracting. The color of his jeans provided a visual anchor for the composition and created some contrast that draws the viewer’s eye to him. His body language and the slight lilt to his body delivered a relaxed and expressive gesture that helped complete the portrait.

Use Your Feet

Once I have determined what to include or exclude from the frame, I am moving. I am shifting the position of the camera in space and I am also moving my own body. I move my body to the left or right. I crouch down. I refine my frame by shifting myself at the waist in a myriad of ways that would make my yoga instructor proud (if I had a yoga instructor).

It is a little dance that I do as I constantly frame, evaluate, and reframe the scene, all in consideration of what to include or exclude from the frame. Because I rely on fixed focal length lenses, rather than zooms, it is necessary for me to move myself rather than adjust the lens’s focal length. As versatile as zoom lenses can be, I feel I can achieve my visual goals faster and more easily by just moving my own body. I have something better than a zoom lens—I have my feet.

In the hours leading up to a wedding I had been commissioned to photograph, I observed the maids of honor preparing each other’s hair in the kitchen. I knew that this interaction would result in some lovely gestures that would suggest the tenderness and care these women shared with each other.

Rather than shooting from a distance, I moved in very close and composed the photograph with a wide-angle lens. The choice of a wide aperture of f/2.5 was both an aesthetic choice and a necessary one. The light levels in the kitchen were low, necessitating the use of an ISO of 6400. However, the wide aperture gave me the shallow depth of field that I wanted to emphasize the woman’s braids.

As the woman’s two friends tended to her, I adjusted my position, paying attention to the women’s hands as they moved around the edges of my composition. The final result captured the intimacy of the moment and is a photograph that I consider to be strong aesthetically as well.

If I had photographed the women from where I initially observed them, the photograph would have less impact. It would have included the clutter of the kitchen and the other women in the room. Those many distractions would have taken away from the care that these women took with each other. The only way for me to make that image happen was to zoom with my feet, get close, and wait for the moment to reveal itself.

Do not make the mistake of making your picture from the place where you discovered your subject. That is likely not going to be the best location from which to make the photograph. You have to assess the scene, the subject, and the background and determine how to make them play well together. If you do not move and you just stay in place and do nothing more than adjust your zoom lens, you are likely just inviting disappointment. Get moving and earn that picture.