 How's it? How's it? Today we're going to look at a simple yet so effective way of elevating your photographs into something that has just a little bit more about them. We're going to be talking about framing. Now, if you're not familiar with the concept of framing, this goes against pretty much everything you get told when you are, you know, a beginner photographer, which is to, you know, make the subject. The whole point of the photograph of, you know, not having distracting things in the way, but what we're going to do now is actually have the main point of the photograph relatively small within the picture that is not going to be front and centre, you know, standing to attention saying, look at me, look at me, but you are going to place it to the left, maybe, you know, to the right or somewhere that's not front and centre and bringing framing into play. And framing is what you are going to use to change the mood of the photograph completely, that it will take what could be just a tiny random thing in the background and focus the viewer's attention on it in a way that is complementary, in a way that does not compete and yet channels that vision all the way to that thing that you want them to ultimately discover within your photograph. There are a number of ways that you can do this. I mean, the most simple idea is, of course, using physical framing. The most obvious is a window frame, you know, the clues in the name, a window frame. Imagine if you shoot, look, you know, well, don't imagine right now, wherever you are, look out the window and see how it frames a thing beyond it. What would happen if you were to photograph stepping back a little bit and actually using the window frame? You can do this to such great effect to isolate things, to give your photographs a little bit more depth to them. That's a very basic way of, you know, thinking about framing, but staying with the geometric shapes go a little bit further, door frames, frames of buildings. So often, you know, you see great looking old buildings that are jammed into cities and you go, well, I like the old building, but I don't really want all the, the modern bluffness that's around it. So one of the ways you can get around this is to actually frame the building by using blank pieces of this modern architecture. Of course, modern architecture has given us a real gift here because so much of it is, well, it's not uninteresting, but it is big sheets of essentially very repetitive or very blank spaces that you can use as a wonderful, framing device. Think about not only are you changing the view of the subject by, you know, isolating it and allowing us to view the architecture by itself without being influenced by all the rubbish around, but you're also creating on a different level juxtaposition by comparing the old with that blank sheet of the new. And because it's blank, it's not as in interruptive as so like street signs and things like that. So that's a wonderful way of using this as you practice this skill, you will begin to see the opportunity for framing all around you. Now, using geometric shapes and architectural forms and things of that nature is it's all, you know, it's great. Right. But what if you're more kind of like a landscape or, you know, a street photographer or something like that? Well, then in landscape, well, you're in luck because, of course, natural form is glorious at framing things in a very sympathetic way. Let's call it, right, that when you look at trees, they can frame a wonderful scene of a lake or a castle. Framed within a pattern of forest. These are all framing devices, even though you're not probably familiar with the name. This is what they're doing. They're isolating the subject and saying to the viewer, this is what you really should be interested in. One of my favorite things within photography is what I call shooting through. So this is the process of having things in the foreground that are sort of out of focus, that you're shooting through them at something in beyond them. Right. And as a beginner photographer, you kind of get told, yeah, this isn't really something you should be doing there. Look, there's distracting elements and stuff. And that's true because if you don't use it correctly, then they are just simply distracting elements. But when you start photographing with intent, when you're really thinking about using those items, maybe some tree or some twigs or some some wonderful grass as a framing device, then it lends that photograph a an organicness, a realness that I absolutely adore, because it makes us feel like we're actually there. That this isn't a contrived image, which sometimes, you know, landscape photography can feel a little bit like it's it's just a little bit too perfect. Right. So this makes it feel like you've been walking through a wood or somewhere. And you have a chance upon this scene that you have glimpsed the deer in the background there and you having to look through all the trees and stuff. And it just makes the photograph feel like it's coming alive, that it has real depth to it. And with street photography, you know, use people as framing devices, get down low. Maybe, you know, the feet of the crowd can use as similar like tree trunks that they are, you know, leading the eye somewhere through there at weddings. They used to love shooting over somebody's shoulder, you know, not literally shooting over the shoulder, but using them as a framing device to bring attention to the expression on the face of the person they were talking to. It just makes the photograph feel like it's got a lot more depth to it. And that's a word that I keep coming back to in this is depth. Adding this depth into your photographs is going to give them more staying power with the person who is looking at your images. So think about this whenever you are out and about doing landscapes or street photography or, you know, urban, what have you, is look for shapes that you can use to cut up the frame into various sections and see what happens when you make, say, let's say you cut it into four quarters. If you make three of those quarters fairly bland, fairly nondescript, fairly non competitive, if you put it that way, and then have the focus in one place, but not merely just, you know, shuffling everything into one corner, but using ideas, using the concepts that we've looked at now to frame that last quarter. Once you've got the hang of this, once you're feeling a little bit, you know, oh, I've got this framing thing, you know, awesome. Start thinking about light and shadow. This is amazing when you can start using light and shadow to frame ideas, because not only are you drawing attention to the subject that you want to elevate it a little bit within the picture, but you're also adding some mystique because you're using light and shade. You're hiding some things and revealing others. You are like a master playing with the emotions of the person who's looking at your photograph. I haven't mentioned him for a while, but Alex Webb's photography is a wonderful example of this ability to use light and shade and the framing devices that we've talked about within this video to combine into a gorgeous photograph that is full of story, full of visual interest and of mystery and conveys an emotion. His photography, if you are looking to improve your ability to frame is a masterclass and I've linked to it here and I would highly suggest that you go and look at his beautiful photographs. Thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon.