Patti asks us to show some images which demonstrate “Filling the Frame”. The implied ‘frame’ is simply the border of a photograph. When choosing to “Fill the Frame” only the subject is shown with very little open spaces around the edges. Why is this concept of interest to many photographers? If the subject is the only focal point in the picture, then it is easy for the viewer’s eye to connect with the details and also get an idea of the kind of feeling the photographer wants to convey.
Earlier this week for a couple of days, the Kiawah Island Photography Club hosted Richard Bernabe, an internationally prominent professional photographer whose work often appears in publications all over the world. More recently, the April 2019 Outdoor Photographer Magazine featured his photograph of puffins on its cover in addition to an accompanying article and pictures inside. (www.richardbernabe.com) During his morning lecture imagine my surprise when Richard talked about the importance of Filling the Frame with our pictures! He emphasized the importance of asking ourselves what ‘we are seeing and feeling and how best to convey these feelings to the viewer’. For example, does the subject have an interesting pattern, intriguing details, diagonal and/or straight lines or a particularly pleasing color combination? Also, is there a sense of mystery surrounding the subject or does it convey power or strength or even a softness through colors or, perhaps, Dreamy (which was our topic and posted on July 24, 2019)?
When looking through my files I choose a few of my favorites, I then asked ‘why are these among my favorites?’, probably because of their patterns, designs and colors.
The various rich colors in this daisy plant are the first thing that grabbed my eye. By filling the frame with this image I noticed numerous triangles formed by the sepals, translucent white petals with the sun shining on the face of the flowers plus strong vertical green stems anchoring it down.
The leading line in the middle of the image denotes strength where the colors reflected on many of the bottles imply a softness, all of this is balanced this against vertical lines, triangle shapes and circles. This art exhibit is by Josiah McElheny, entitled Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism, 2007, was on display in The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.
Another view of this exhibit showing detailed reflections.
This carpenter bee was so busy pollinating the daises in our flower bed it never noticed me. It was not until I zoomed in on this picture and saw it on the flower head did I realize what a great job the bee was doing!
This image of aging mushrooms was featured a couple of weeks ago (Sept 18, 2019) when the topic was Magical. I decided to show it again since filling the frame with just the mushrooms emphases the beautiful combination of colors plus the amazing details in the mushrooms. Much of its beauty is lost in the previous picture since the background is cluttered and distracts the eye.