“The edges are always important to the picture” said Len.

Here I am paraphrasing so many other photographers whom talk about the importance of the edge of the picture frame in photography. Just to repeat, as this is such an important rule.

The edges are always important.

There are two approaches that I have used that may help:

One is consciously running your eye around the edge before you take every photograph. Pam calls this ‘Going on Border Control’. I have met photographers who have even printed a little label and stuck it on the back of their camera that says, ‘check the edges’ or ‘edge check’. I notice that when I forget to do this, or become lazy with this, the quality of my photographs drops. It is so much easier to do when I am using a tripod, because I can take my time. It is something that happens when I get out of practice. I soon get back into it again when I realise I have dropped my guard.

The other is to actually start framing from an edge or a corner and then working your way around the edges to get your composition sorted at the edges from the very start.

I first realised that I was often framing my photographs by starting at the edge or the corner when Mark Littlejohn said that he does it. This was on a workshop we were co teaching in the Lake District in the United Kingdom together with Tim Parkin. It was a sudden light bulb moment. Oh, I do that all the time.

So there you have it, two different ways to look after your edges. Personally, I believe that if you put extra attention into getting your edges working for the photograph you will end up with better photographs.

Another way of looking at it is that when my eye goes to the edge of the frame, I want the viewer to return into the photograph rather than keeping on going and onto the next photograph or distraction. The longer someone looks at a photography the more captivating it is.

The next question we need to find the answers to is:

What do we do at the edges? Here are some things to consider:

1. distractions

2. vignetting

   1. caused by the lens which many remove with automatic lens corrections

   2. using the vignetting function in software (also the darken edges functions in the NIK software suite)

   3. using radial filters or even adding masks in layers - particularly helpful for decentering

   4. natural vignettes seen when taking the photograph and included in your framing

   5. reverse vignettes where you go with lightening at the edges and corners

3. tension at the edges

4. peace at the edges

5. gestalt continuation, where you continue a shape out of the frame that brings the viewers eye back into the photograph

6. balancing one edge against the other

So this weeks exercise is to try the two methods I have described and to practice them both. To take photographs that explore what you can do at the edges of the picture and see what you can do when you pay particular attention to this concept of edge control.

Please post the photographs in our forum. https://lensclub.discussion.community/post/ex96-the-edges-are-always-important-11277357?pid=1321697412#post1321697412