The use of foreground and background elements is one of the most common compositional tools in photography. They are perhaps used most often in street, landscape and event photography where the surrounding environment can offer up subjects and elements to play with when layering a scene. For example, landscape photography often uses objects in the environment such as rocks, shrubs or trees in the foreground of their photographs to improve the composition by making it more interesting.

That being said, simply adding an object in the foreground or background may not be enough and may not make the composition any stronger. Compelling compositions are more than just the tools used to create them. As such, foreground and background elements are often justified in some way beyond the mere graphical relationships.

Ultimately, foreground and background elements are just one of the many tools that can be used to bring to life a more meaningful and rich photograph. Like an archaeologist's trowel, brush or sieve is used to reveal something compelling from the earth, in photography these tools help us to create something compelling that goes beyond the elements themselves.

In my experience, this happens when relationships between these layers of the composition are revealed.

What are these relationships?

The above example is about as obvious as I tend to get with using foreground and background elements in a composition, given that the foreground subject, the two people watching the Kamo River are separated spatially within a wide open area. This spatial separation as well as the background element of the bridge works to emphasise the relationship people have most often with rivers.

Unless we dive in to swim, these deeply natural places are often kept at arm’s length, either gazing at them from the shore or peering down from above. We feel the power, beauty and soothing coolness of the water from the safety of dry ground or from heights.

As well, in some way the bridge helps to reveal this concept of a “barrier to entry” in a literal way. It’s stature feels a little like that of a wall, even if that is not its purpose. While it may not be obvious at first glance, the two subjects, the river, the bridge and its pedestrians offer something for the viewer to think about and ruminate on that only exists in the relationshiops between them all.

When I'm photographing, I'm not fully conscious of the relationships all the time, but abstract ideas and experience often propel me toward certain foreground and background compositions, as if I’m honing in on the place where everything starts to fit into place naturally.

There are many ways of creating interesting combinations of foreground and background elements. Perhaps the most common is juxtaposition which is the use of opposites, such as a small tree against a large expansive sky, or two people wearing clothes of opposite colour. Juxtaposition is interesting to the eye and intriguing to the mind.

You can layer unrelated elements to create a sense of irony or to emphasise an aspect or predicament that the subject is in. For example, the shape of a tree is organic and unorganised in the natural world, not minding which direction it grows as long as it remains alive. Compare that to man-made structures which are often perfectly designed through mathematics. Man’s dominion over nature is, you might say, unnatural, and yet it’s stuck in the middle with nowhere to go.

By placing these opposing ideas together, you aren’t just placing something in front of another for the purpose of layering, you’re creating a spark for thought by exposing the relationship between the two elements.

Foreground elements can also be used to emphasise the size of and distance to the subject matter. In the example below, the jetty creates a sense of the distance to the two subjects far away in the scene. It’s like a ruler for the viewer. It connects the viewer to the subjects.

Rulers don’t have to be straight. A winding road or river across a plain heading towards a mountain draws the eye from the foreground into the scene, creating a sense of the size and expanse of the environment.

In examples like these, be careful not to include more than one primary background and foreground element. A road, even if it leads into the background, is still a primary component. In the sunrise example further down, you’ll see how a road becomes the primary background component.

Photography has the capability of telling stories and to suggest moments in time. The road stretching into the background below suggests the distance we’ve journeyed through the early morning light, and also can suggest that the journey is not yet over. A road is a place that connects events and locations within a story. Our destination awaits while we take a break to enjoy the incredible light around us.

You might use the winding shape of a trail, a river, or a path to suggest the movement of the story. Many objects or constructs are intrinsically linked with the movement of time and progress of a story and can be used to reveal this in a photograph.

Layering a composition using background and foreground elements is one of my favourite parts of photography, but if you can think further about why you’re including something in a frame, you may find your work becoming more and more compelling as the relationships between all of these elements start to reveal themselves.

Photography is an amazing storytelling artform, and relationships, whether between two people or between a tree and a mountain, are at the heart of what intrigues us as human beings.

Search for interesting elements to layer then ask… why am I putting these together?