Using Tight Framing to Create a Sense of Infinity

The way you frame and crop your shots has power to give a sense of size to a scene that may not actually be there.

For example – the shot to the left of a field of tulips is framed in such a way that there is not beginning or end to the tulips anywhere inside the frame.

While the field tulips may in fact end just beyond the edge of the frame in any direction – the feeling that this framing gives is that of a never ending sea of tulips.

To get the effect the photographer has managed to get the angles right so that there’s no horizon and they’ve filled the frame with their subject.

To see the same principles illustrated again – check out the two following images. The first shot actually contains a lot more flowers than the second one – but because there’s a break in the flowers with the horizon there’s a sense that the flowers are limited to a certain area. Whereas the second scene could actually have a lot less flowers in it – but they go on and on in the mind of those viewing the shot.

The same principles can be applied to numerous other situations. For example the same thing is done in the following image of a sailing boat:

The boat is seemingly in the middle of an ocean – as there’s no end to the water in the frame. However the inclusion of land in any direction or even a horizon would have interrupted the water and given the image a different feeling.

Again it is a combination of the angle that the photographer is shooting from (from slightly above) and the framing of the subject.