Arranging your scene for cleaner and more interesting photos

Whenever you photograph a scene, there is an intention behind the shot. Sometimes this intention is well-considered, even planned, and sometimes it’s just point-and-shoot. But even when you just point-and-shoot, there is something about the scene that you want to capture.

Abandoned by Marius Waldal

Analyze the entire scene

For some few shots, you don’t have time to do anything else than just shoot, but for every other shot you should stop a moment and have a good look at the scene before you. Is there anything in the scene that will work against your intention? Is there any object or subject that might draw the attention away from your main subject? Is there anything that might reduce the overall quality of your photo?

Example

For instance, imagine you’re shooting a beautiful scene of a park bench, with autumn colors. If the entire scene is nice and clean, except for a large McDonald’s take-away bin that someone has thrown on the ground next to the bench, your photo is ruined. There’s always the possibility to remove the waste in Photoshop later, but as a rule of thumb you should always try and do as much work as possible before the photo is shot. So walk over and throw that waste in the trashcan, then go back and take your shot (and do a good deed at the same time!).

This example was fairly obvious, but even obvious disturbances sometimes elude you if you’re not paying attention. You might be out shooting some leaves while almost lying on the ground yourself, getting nice shots with great bokeh, only to find that the tiniest straw was leaning in front of your lens, creating a blurred line across half your photo.

In the photo at the top, a self-portrait, I arranged my scene by adding debris. The white plastic can lying there was actually lying further away, outside the frame. I wanted the scene to look more messy, so I moved it into the frame.

Change your viewpoint

You don’t always have to physically move things to remove them from your scene. Sometimes, just a small change in your viewpoint is enough that the disturbance is hidden from your camera.

Attention-stealers

In some cases, there are objects in the scene that draw the attention of the viewer. There can be several reasons for this, but an obvious one is that the object is brightly colored. If this object does not add to the scene, consider removing it before taking the shot.

What to look for

• Waste bins
• Waste lying around
• Street signs (you can’t move these, of course, but might be able to hide them from another viewpoint)
• Straws or branches covering some of your main subject
• Rotten leaves among beautiful colored leaves lying on the ground

So always take in your scene, analyze it, and decide if there are elements that don’t add to the scene, or even disturbs it. There’s nothing wrong with going over to a house wall and moving a garbage bin out of the way before photographing the building. Just remember to put it back when you’re done!

If you have additional tips, we’d love to hear them! Fire away in the comments.

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