TechniqueLesson 6 of 8 · 15 min · 5 reading, 10 doing
The short version
Most beginner photos have the subject too small. Take the photo, then take a step closer and take it again. Fill the frame with the thing you care about.
Look back through your phone. Count the photos where the thing you wanted to show takes up less than a quarter of the frame. For most people it's a lot of them. The fix is the simplest in photography: move your feet.
The photographer Robert Capa is often quoted as saying that if your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. It's as true of a café table as anything else.
Why closer works
It removes clutter. Bins, signs, other people and bright patches pull the eye away. Step in and most of them leave the frame.
It shows detail. Texture, expression and small things your viewer would never notice from across the street.
It makes the subject obvious. No one has to wonder what the photo is about.
It helps the camera. With the subject filling the frame, Auto's focus and brightness are measured mostly from the subject, so they're more likely to be right.
From a distance: the benches are small, and trees, path and buildings compete for attention.
Close: one bench fills the frame, and its iron curls and worn slats become the subject.
Feet or zoom?
Both work, and they're not quite the same.
Zooming with the lens's zoom ring (or a compact's zoom lever) makes the subject bigger without moving. It's ideal when you can't get closer: across water, at a fence, near nervous wildlife.
Walking closer changes how big the subject looks compared with the background. Module 13 explains this in detail.
On a phone, use your feet first. On many phones, the lens buttons (0.5x, 1x, 2x and so on) give the best quality. Between them, and beyond the longest one, the phone mostly zooms by cropping the picture, which throws detail away.
A small bird in a big sky. It works as a mood, but the bird is a speck.
A heron filling the frame: feathers, beak and eye all readable.
The edge check
Before you press, run your eyes once around the four edges of the frame. Is there half a car, a bright sign, a stranger's elbow? Take one more step in, or shift sideways a little, until each edge is clean. It takes two seconds and fixes a surprising number of photos. The grid you turned on in Module 1 helps you see the edges.
How close can you go?
Every lens has a closest focusing distance. Get nearer than that and the camera can't focus: the focus box blinks or stays red, or the photo is soft everywhere. When that happens, step back a little until it locks. The distance is often marked on the lens barrel or listed in the lens specifications.
Some phones switch to a close-up (macro) mode by themselves when you get very near. You may see the view jump slightly, or a small flower symbol appear.
When to stay back
Sometimes the place is the story: a tiny figure on a huge beach, a house under a big sky. Then small is a choice, and it works because the empty space means something. Module 12 explores that. For now, when in doubt, get closer.
Finn's tip
Take your first photo, then take two more, each one step closer. Keep the best. You'll be surprised how often it's the last one.
Where this goes wrong
Cutting off a bit that matters, like the top of a head or the tip of a tail. Close is good; chopped is not.
Getting too close for the lens to focus. Step back until the focus box locks.
Crowding people. Ask first, and use zoom when getting close isn't polite or safe.
Quick checkYou photograph a friend's cake at a party from your seat. It takes up a small corner of the photo, beside half a wine glass. What do you do?
Stand up, step closer until the cake fills most of the frame, and run your eyes around the edges to push the wine glass out. If you can't move, zoom in.
Try it now · 10 minutes
Choose one object at home: a plant, a pair of shoes, a bowl of fruit.
Photograph it from five big steps away. Then three steps, then one, then as close as your camera will focus.
Do the edge check before each one.
Look at the four photos side by side. Which one tells you most about the object? Which one has the least clutter?
