Travel Photography Tips | Don’t Forget To Add Foreground Interest

© 2012 Wazari Wazir |  Lake | Pokhara Nepal

Landscape photographers knows this very well, it is a secret ingredients for a successful landscape photography but you can also use foreground interest for any kind of photographic genre. Your foreground subject can be your main subject or just as a compliments for the entire photograph, I mean you don’t really need to add a foreground interest but by adding the foreground interest, it will make it more complete.

For the photograph above, the main subject is not those two boats, but the Himalayan Mountain behind, or to be exact the Annapurna Range, the photograph were taken at Phewa Lake in Pokhara just few minutes before sunset. Why I’m saying that the boats is not the main subject but the Himalayan Mountain? Actually the reason is very simple and obvious, you can find boat like this in so many lakes and river but those mountain is an iconic image of the Annapurna Range in the Himalaya, if you love mountains, you will immediately recognise that the highest peak on the left side of the photograph is the famous Machhapuchhre or famously called as “Fishtail Mountain” among the local people of Nepal especially those who live in Pokhara.

If I cropped the mountains behind, and leaving only the boats and the lakes, I think you can hardly imagine where this photograph were taken but when you saw the mountains behind, at least you can guess where the photograph were taken, whether it is in the Himalaya, Andes, Alps or any places which have a mountain view similarly like that, but like what I’ve mention before, if you love mountains, for sure you can immediately recognised the mountain behind. My point is, the mountain behind is the main focal point for this photograph and the boats just act as a foreground interest to complements the photograph.

But then it could be the other way around, you the general viewers might think that the boat is the main focal point here and the mountain behind is just to complement it, it is up to you based on your preference but without the mountain behind, this photograph could be taken anywhere. The other things why foreground matters is that, it create layers of interest, it create depth, where you can start your viewing pleasure from the boats and all the way to the top of the mountains.

It creates layer of interest, the boats is one layer, the lake behind is another layer and the mountain also another layers. So next times you going out photographing something especially landscape, keep in mind about adding foreground interest to your photograph. The best way to photograph foreground is to use small aperture like f/8 and above, so you will get maximum sharpness all around, foreground to background and if you are really serous about landscape, take  a tripod and a set of filters with you like ND or Graduated filters to balance the exposure between the sky and the foreground where it matters.