Photographic Layers of Interest

The Strobist has deviated slightly from the usual tasty buffet of good lighting articles and served up a delicious article that discusses layers of interest in photographs

From the article:

“Top to bottom, left to right, front to back,” The Washington Post’s Mike Williamson told me once. That’s the standard. Fill the frame. Make it work. Make someone want to stay there a while.

Usually, the more layers of interest I can pull off in a photo - and still have it “work” - the happier I am.

The layers of interest discussed here are the elements of a photo that tell a story. They are the details in a photo that make viewers step in closer to have a better look at what you have captured.

Creating a depth of interest, however, a tricky balance. There is a temptation to include more compositional elements in the hopes that they may create additional interest in the photo, but this can often lead to clutter. This is why creating such images is so difficult: the details must compliment and add to the subject, not compete with it.