You’ve got your theme, you’ve got your elements, you’ve got the rule of thirds layout, but you’re missing something in the foreground. How do you find the perfect foreground to complement your image and give it that truly amazing element?
When I first got into photography, I was backpacking through Eastern Europe as a pretty art student, so I always wanted to take flamboyant black and white photos in winter in Prague or a person. Someone is smoking in a cafe in Amsterdam. It was all very pretentious and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but looking back at some of those old reels I’m struck by how little thought I used to put in. Some of my subjects are actually quite interesting, but my foreground is a mess of mushy. Fast forward to my hobby of landscape photography years later, and I bought a wide-angle lens for the first time, and the contrast couldn’t be better: I started filling the whole image with money elements. scene because I was amazed at the extent to which I was able to really fit in the frame. The bottom line with all of this is that regardless of the genre, it’s hard to find a good foreground that complements your subject rather than detracting from or overpowering it. But how do you come up with that perfect foreground?
That question brings us to this amazing video by Adam Gibbs, in which he takes us into the forests of Vancouver Island and walks us through his process for getting a great foreground: in In this case, the subject is a waterfall. What I find most interesting is not just what to include in your foreground, but also where to place it relative to your subject and how many frames you should give your foreground elements. Watch the video and let me know how you choose the optimal foreground.
