Simple Photography Tips - Choosing your foreground
- Michael Blyth
- Jun 4
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 5
Five simple photography tips on photographing coastal scenes - Camera and Phone Camera
Take time looking at the options you have in the foreground
Be aware of the light, perhaps waiting until sun lands in the right place
Using a strong foreground can add huge interest when photographing cliffs
If there's something in the way, deliberately incorporate it into your picture
Try to avoid post-adjustment
If you've been following for a while, you'll know that I did a trip to Majorca.
There is an amazing piece of coastland on the very northern tip of the island called Cap de Formentor, and the Cap de Formentor Lighthouse is one the list of places to visit on Majorca.
Despite the fact that it was pre-tourist season, we were unwise enough to visit on a Sunday; there were cars galore coming and going down the very windy and quite narrow road to the lighthouse at the far tip.
Worse than the cars were the cyclists. Fair enough it is considered one of the best cycle loops on the island, but it was definitely a 'crime' to be in a car, rather than a nutter on a bike (35km and 1000m of climb is proof of nuttiness!).
Gave up trying to get to the lighthouse, another day and better time maybe, especially with banks of fog doing lazy Sunday afternoon drifting.
Pulled in to a lay-by. A short walk up to the cliff-edge revealed a spectacular scene.
Let's have a drift through the images I took, with a view to some simple-photography-tips on foreground composition in photographs.
I took a selection of images with varying foregrounds. The background, though spectacular, has no real focus - it's a cliff with fog! But the foreground really adds to the image.
There are no rights and wrongs in this, it's up to you, and I have mixed views as to which I prefer.
Image One is quite interesting, in that the foregound almost overpowers the scene.
The angle at which the limestone is lying, and the fact that this foreground takes up much of the image, means that the jagged rock makes the scene almost 'aggressive'.
The foreground dropping away to the left adds to the almost vertiginous nature of the picture.
Image Two is the same piece of rock, but with less fall to the left, and less jaggedness overall.
The use of zoom has changed the balance, and brought the cliff into more dominance - and you can even see the lighthouse - which I've only noticed as I write this! (Didn't look long enough to see!!)
The placing of the plant on the lower right intersecting third not only softens the scene further, throws the background slightly out of focus but adds to the foreground texture and interest.
Image Three. Realising that hidden below the rock of Images One and Two, was a bay and small rocky beach. I moved to the right to capture it. So let's pretend that my shadow in the way isn't there, but it does show easily it can happen.
The foreground is quite dominant, with some interesting eroded limestone texture on the bottom left, along with mixed vegetation. The inlet angle takes the eye on a journey into the bay, with breaking waves and deeper shadow.
Image four is very similar to Image Three, but allowing the foreground to be further below does give a very different balance, with the cliffs and bay coming more to dominance than previously.
Image Five, again a different focus, with the vegetation in the foreground being very much more dominant than the plant in Image Two. The selection of lens to allow the plants right in close, to be in focus, has just dropped the background into soft-focus, but not so much that it's irrelevant.
The long angular leaves provide a great foil to the elliptical leaves and twigs.
As I said towards the start, there are no rights and wrongs, each image has it's positives. But it does add some challenges to the decision making, but not so much that it's worth worrying tooooo mucho - just enjoy it as a an enjoyable aspect of taking landscape pictures.
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