Photo Boost | Day One | Fill the frame

Whoop!  Welcome to the 7-Day Photo Boost!

Here’s how the 7 Day Photo Boost will work

Every day, for the next 7 days, you’ll receive a daily email with a link to a super simple tip and mini-lesson to help boost your photos. Along with the tip, there will be a photo challenge to get you out and practising your new photography skill!

  1. Check out the daily photo tip & lesson
  2. Join our FREE Facebook group.  Once you’re in, introduce yourself, let us know what you’re hoping to learn or maybe even share your favourite photo!
  3. Make sure your hashtag your images: #photmojophotoboost #myphotomojo #MPMdayone to ensure we can view all your photo and feature our favourites.
  4. Sit back and be inspired by everyone’s work by visiting the hashtags and don’t forget to leave some love on the photos that catch your eye!

Now let’s get into the boost!

Day One | Fill the frame

For our first bite-sized photography lesson, I want you to get up close and personal!  That’s right, I’m giving you permission to be a space invader, with your camera at least!  Filling the frame, quite simply means filling the entire photo (frame) with all or a section of your subject.  It doesn’t matter at all what the subject is, it could be your child’s face, your breakfast or even that gorgeous flower from your favourite person (lucky you!).  Filling the frame is one simplest compositional tools pros use to give their images that extra impact.  By simply filling the frame with your subject you’ll transform your images instantly from busy to clean, simple and uncluttered.  And this simplicity makes the photo easier for the viewer to process and can bring that wow factor!

See how this shot of an agave in my garden (alas no flowers for me this week) is transformed by simply moving in closer and filling the frame, it’s gone from snapshot to wow!  Aside from moving closer and zooming in, all the other settings on my camera are exactly the same.

Too many distracting elements
Immediate impact!

You might be wondering why don’t we instinctively fill the frame when taking a picture of a specific subject? Well, what’s happening is when you’re standing in front of a scene, you’re often focused so intently on your subject that your brain is tricked into thinking your subject is closer and more isolated than it really is.  The camera, however, isn’t tricked by your brain, it faithfully captures everything it sees.

In my client sessions, I particularly love taking portraits up so close that I regularly cut off to tops of kids heads!  It’s a well known pro-tip that really brings the focus to your subjects eyes, and for me, eyes and connection with those eyes are what makes a portrait standout.

A nice enough shot but not much impact
Boom, those eyes are the full focus!

Hot Tips

If you’re using a camera that lets you change the aperture, try setting it really wide (the lowest number) so your background becomes all lovely and blurry and the attention is only on your nice sharp subject.

Whatever the camera, just before you take the shot, take a really good look around the frame and see if there is anything you can crop out.  If in doubt, let this be your mantra – “move closer!”

Inspiration

So many subjects work brilliantly with filling the frame, try any or all of these to get you started.  People, flowers, foliage, coffee, shells, coffee, jewellery, light filtering through trees, architectural details, interesting crockery, water, rocks, eyes . . . you get the idea

The Challenge

Choose yourself a subject (we’ve given you loads of ideas in the inspiration section, and get in close, take your photo, then think about getting closer!  Do you need to show all of the subject to get the idea across?  Don’t forget to upload your photo to instagram and tag #photmojophotoboost #myphotomojo #MPMdayone