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Jeffrey Hill, Lancashire (Jon) ‘Foreground’ is where you are

To make the most of foregrounds, there’s no substitute for a wide-angle lens. (See ssss1 for what constitutes a ‘wide-angle’ on different camera formats). Wide-angles can encompass both the broad sweep of a landscape and the vital foreground detail. However, they’re also pretty good at taking in things you don’t want as well as those you do, so think about the whole frame. Keep it simple!

Foregrounds are also a great way to enhance a sense of scale. It’s funny, but it’s true: if you want a photo of a mountain that gives a sense of its awesome size, filling the picture with it may not be the best way. For most people, especially those with limited experience of mountains, a shot of a peak in isolation, without context, is hard to ‘read’.

Including a relatively familiar object, like a tree, helps us make sense of the unfamiliar. Human figures are also ideal for this, because we all know how big – or rather, how small – human beings are. Making the figure really tiny in the frame can be very effective – as long as it’s still recognisably human, not just a small black dot.