If you have to use a magnifying glass to see your subject in a photograph there is no point in that photo graph at all. Photographs are meant to tell some thing, having a lot of unnecessary things in your frame will take away the importance from your subject. This article is meant for the beginners, the aim of this article is to make the photographer understand why it is important to fill the frame right and also how to do this.

Let us take the part of why it is important to fill your frame.

Some times things like vast expanse of sky or a huge crowed can be used positively to frame a subject or if it is a landscape or a wide angle these things usually complement the photograph. In other cases where we are trying to give importance to a particular subject( it could be a person, an object, a building etc ) it is important to make sure that the subject looks to have importance in the photograph too. If we will the frame to the right amount with the object of interest that will make a much better photograph than one in which the object is just a spec.

Let us consider a photo

This photo has no given subject of interest that is this photo is not telling a story, it is not showing some one it is not highlighting any thing and finally there is nothing in this photo that would catch the attention of the on looker. If you are just beginning in the world of photographs then you might notice that you have a lot of these images in your collection. Do not worry you are just learning, at least you are reading this article which means you want to improve. Now let us divide the scenario into two. Filling your frame when shooting people and fill your frame when shooting object.

People

A person is identified to a large extent by his face. When you are not filling the frame properly the facial details are not visible and the expression on your subject face is worth a million dollars. The technique of filling your frame is very important when it comes to people. When photographing sports this becomes very important.It is also important in street photography. The key is to take photo from a position where you can fill the frame. When in a large field if you can get a front row seat that will get you a lot nearer to the subject and enable you to frame better. Further more photos taken when the players  come near to the position you are seated at, can be better framed and better filled. Do remember that using a longer focal length gives you better bokeh (shallow dof) so it would always be advisable to invest in a good zoom lens.

Portraits are to be filled , meaning when taking portraits the proper filling of the frame is of utmost importance as the person is of key importance in this scenario. Filling means filling the frame with the subject of interest to the optimum limit.  The optimum limit in the case of people can vary from situation to situation. In sports it would be interesting to have the ball and the whole sportsman in the frame, but in other situation it would be better to have just the upper body and so on.

This image is framed much better than the previous one. Let us analyse this picture a little, if he had just filled the frame with the player that would have less message than this picture with the wickets. It has a story to tell, that of the player getting out. When framing people if their face is important do make sure that you fill the frame with at least 50% with the person.

Objects

Fill the frame in such a way that the details that need to be captured on the object are sharp and clear. The perspective also is to be taken into account in both cases. What is important is to understand that the photo should have enough of the object of the object should have enough importance in the photo that the observe feels the importance. That you as the photographer wanted to give the subject.

Let us look that the possible ways of filling the frame:

Mainly there are three options

1. Optical Zoom – most point and shootscome with a zoom lens DSLR’s can be fitted with a telephoto lens.
2. Move Closer – The easiest way to fill the frame is to move towards or away from the subject to get to a location that gives a desirable fill. In general you could move closer like in a stadium get the front rows thus moving closer to the subject.
3. Cropping – This will reduce the quality of the picture as they are being made smaller, but is very effective and easy to do. By cropping you can increase the fill but you cant reduce it, some times you can have too much fill like in the case of the second photograph if the wicket was not in the frame that would have been too much fill.

A word of caution about digital zooms

Digital zooms give you the ability to get unbelievable amounts of zoom but be aware that the essential process you are doing it cropping thus you are actually reducing the image quality when you digitally zoom but the plus point with digital zoom is that you can actually zoom out to get less fill as you are doing it in real time.

Now take your camera and practice what you have just read, reading will only give you the idea, you learn when you practice. Another important thing is to look at picture that other people have taken and look at the framing to learn the different methods and ideas they have implemented.

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