Fill the frame photography refers to any picture where the frame is taken up almost entirely by the subject, generally eliminating any background from the image. Learn tips and techniques on how to master this style of photography.
In this article, we’ll cover:
What Is Fill the Frame Photography?
What is fill the frame in photography? Fill the frame photography refers to any picture where the frame is taken up by the subject.
This style of photography is the opposite of using negative or white space when composing an image. Fill the frame photography generally eliminates any background from the image.
Filling the frame is a great way to create emphasis in your pictures. Fill the frame photography can be captured in camera, but is also something that you can achieve in post-production while you edit your images.
Benefits of Filling the Frame in Photos
Why would a photographer want to eliminate all of the background information from the frame?
Here are a few reasons why photographers gravitate towards fill the frame photography.
Emphasize Details
Fill the frame photography is a great way to emphasize details in a picture. Cropping tightly on the details of a kitten’s nose and whiskers can emphasize unusual markings that they might have.
Beauty photographers often use this technique to highlight specific lipstick shades or an intriguing eyeshadow color.
Create a Sense of Connection
Filling the frame with a single subject is a great way to make your viewers feel physically close to the picture.
Some newborn photographers use the this technique to create a sense of connection between new parents and their baby.
Simplify Composition
Photos with simple composition quickly create impact. Filling the frame with a single subject is an easy way to simplify composition when shooting, while simultaneously emphasizing those important details.
Enhance Impact
Photos with impactful composition stick with the viewer for a long time. Filling the frame with a single subject helps enhance impact by eliminating any distracting or unnecessary background information.
License these images via Igor Normann and Bucsa Nicolae.
Food photographers often enhance the juiciness of a burger or the details of a freshly baked loaf of sourdough bread by getting close to the subject and filling the frame with those details.
Control Viewer Perception
By eliminating any background elements, you simplify where the viewer’s eye will go. With fill the frame photography, there is only so much information that can be taken in.
This is a great technique to use if you want there to be no ambiguity regarding the story the picture is trying to tell.
Fill the frame photography is all about getting extremely close to your subjects. But it’s not always safe or comfortable to be physically close.
Here are some tools and techniques that will help you master this style.
Tools and Equipment
The most popular lenses for creating photos that fill the entire frame are macro lenses and zoom lenses.
A macro lens will allow you to get extremely close to your subject and still keep elements in focus.
A zoom lens allows you to be farther away from the subject, yet zoom in to create an image that will fill the frame.
Macro lenses are especially nice for capturing small details and are a popular tool favored by product photographers, beauty photographers, and food photographers.
Macro lenses come in a variety of focal lengths, but generally speaking are prime lenses.
A true macro lens has a magnification ratio of 1:1 and a minimum focusing distance around 30cm. These types of lenses are handy for photographing small subjects.
Wedding photographers generally use them to capture fill the frame photos of a couple’s wedding rings.
Zoom lenses offer a range of focal lengths. A zoom lens allows a photographer to get close to objects that are physically far away from them, and they come in a variety of focal lengths.
A 24-70mm is a standard zoom, while lenses over the 70mm range are referred to as telephoto zoom lenses. A telephoto zoom lens is particularly popular when shooting wildlife or landscape photography.
A standard zoom can be helpful for filling the frame when shooting portraits, as well.
Photography Techniques
The first way to practice filling the frame in your photography is to get closer to your subject. With a macro lens, you can get close physically. A zoom lens lets you get close to the subject while being physically far away.
Macro lenses are best for small objects. Zoom lenses are better for larger objects or things that it wouldn’t be safe to be physically close to—like bears or giant cats.
The second way to practice filling the frame is by filling it with negative space. But, isn’t fill the frame photography the opposite of using negative space? This all depends on what’s happening in the negative space.
If your negative space is a big green field and the main subject is hot pink, you can use that green negative space to fill the frame while still making it obvious where the emphasis is.
A colorful subject against a bright white wall is another creative way to fill the frame with negative space.
Edit Your Photos in Post-Processing to Fill the Frame
Fill the frame photography doesn’t have to be captured in-camera. It can be perfected once you start editing.
Here are some tips to get you started.
Zoom In
If you didn’t zoom in quite tight enough when shooting to fill the frame, you can always fix it in post. Post-processing programs like Shutterstock Create and Adobe Photoshop feature tools that let you digitally zoom into an image.
Zooming in will crop the image into the smaller area, but still let you scale up to the original file size.
License this image via Alexxandra Engel.
Crop Your Background
Cropping the background of an image is a great way to eliminate distracting elements from the frame. It’s also a great tool for changing image ratio.
Changing the crop of a horizontal image into a square or a vertical image can be a handy tool for filling the frame and increasing emphasis.
Unlike zooming, cropping involves cutting away some of the pictures’ digital information. Cropping tools can be found in a number of post-processing programs.
License this image via J. Niens.
Remove Other Subjects or Backgrounds
If you don’t want to change the aspect ratio or zoom into an image, you can always remove distracting elements from the frame.
Post-processing programs like Shutterstock Create and Adobe Photoshop feature excellent AI-powered tools that will help you quickly eliminate distracting subjects with just a few clicks.
License this cover image via simona pilolla 2.
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