A fundamental idea in composition is that you should exclude anything from your photo that doesn’t add to your message. An errant branch, footprints on the ground, whatever harms your story – leave them out of the composition, and you’ll get a stronger photo. But… what if you can’t exclude them completely?
Often in landscape photography, or many other genres, there will be some distractions in the scene that cannot be left out of the composition entirely. Maybe they’re too close to your main subject, or cropping them out would throw off the entire balance of the photo. They need to be included in the frame even though they’re making the photo worse.
This is the point where some photographers would resort to the spot healing tool in order to remove those distractions after the fact. But often, there’s a gentler approach that works just as well, if not better, since it involves more conscious thought when you’re composing in the first place. I’m talking about the subtle art of blocking.
The photo below is an example of this approach:
I like most of this photo. To me, the soft light and gentle color palette are good complements to the nearby trees and distant glacier. However, I also find that my eye is distracted by the large rock near the bottom of the frame on the left. Because it’s brighter than its surroundings, it draws attention, but it doesn’t really reward that attention. I find the trees and glacier to be much more interesting, and I’d rather my eye linger on them instead. The rock’s significant visual weight also leaves the photo a little imbalanced to the left.
Unfortunately, there is no good way to exclude the rock from the composition entirely. I couldn’t point the camera higher without losing the bottom of the tree and lake (or at least placing them uncomfortably close to the edge of the photo). And I couldn’t crop out the leftmost quarter of the frame without drastically harming the balance and breathing space in the photo. One remaining option would be to darken the rock in post-processing – or, more aggressively, to clone it out – but there’s a better approach.
In the field, I recognized that this rock was a distraction but knew there was no good way to exclude it from the frame altogether. So, I looked for elements in the landscape that could block the rock and make it less obtrusive in the first place. To my delight, a nearby tree stood in the perfect spot to do just that. I just needed to move a few steps to the left, and the result was a very similar composition with one less distraction.
Very few landscapes are totally free from distractions or unwanted elements. The natural world can be messy. But I always enjoy the puzzle of composing more effective photos and removing distractions, no healing brush needed. You’ll find many ways to achieve this, from using a different focal length to employing careful dodging and burning in the editing stage. Every scene will call for a slightly different approach. But the subtle art of blocking is one of the best tools at your disposal.
Of course, it starts with identifying distractions in the first place. I believe that, nearly always, the best time to do that is when you’re in the field, not in post-processing. Scan your photos while you’re taking them… and don’t think so much about what you like about the frame. Think more about what you don’t like and what you would change. Then, use all the tools at your disposal to make those changes in the field.
I hope that today, with this quick example, I’ve shown you how the subtle art of blocking can be among the most useful of those tools.
Really enjoyed this brief article.
Masking objects are sometimes necessary, though in my case it’s usually been for aesthetic reasons.
Quite often, it’s also a sign that one tries to put too much in a photograph. The subject becomes less obvious and there are many opportunities for distracting or competing items.
You have enlightened me on something that I’ve been doing for years but was not aware of.
Thanks for the very useful tip.
This is a very enlightening article for me — look for what you don’t like! I hope you can publish more of these short and sweet lessons in the future.
Thank you, Thomas!
Nice idea, Spencer! The emphasis is often on making the parts of the scene very visible and unambiguous, but the opposite can be true for elements you don’t want to appear as well! It’s amazing what a difference blocking the rock makes.
Thanks, Jason! I think that after you choose the main subject, making small changes is what composition is all about.
This is an excellent pointer, Spencer! All too often when I encounter a scene that excites me, I am looking hard at what I like and then move to compose it properly without scanning as thoroughly as I should for ‘distractors.’ Sometimes I find the distractors in the field and move to avoid them somehow, but too often I don’t see the distractors until I’m editing in the computer. Great reminder to methodically look for what I don’t like, right along with what I do. Thanks!
Thank you, Mark! I think of it this way – especially with today’s software, there are many ways to minimize distractions in a photo. But some of the best ways are only possible in the field.
Thank you illustrate a basic technique and dilemma in the composition of large landscapes. That you effectively removed the disturbance of the white rock, but come up with another closer image handling instead, which as well as Larger is mostly a matter of taste. But interesting is what happens to the main subject, the glacier it becomes calmer less scattered, so that’s why I like the second picture better I think
Thanks, Mikael! True, if you flip between the photos quickly, you can see other differences than just covering the rock. Most of those differences, but not all, flow from having a slightly different camera position between the two shots.
Every time that I show a comparison of two photos, I know that some people will prefer the same photo I do, and some people will prefer the other one. But it’s really about the underlying technique – in this case, the ability to minimize distractions in your photo by blocking them with other parts of the scene.