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Helvellyn, Lake District (Jon) Even really tiny figures can be very significant in the shot, especially when they appear to be at the focal point

So how do you ensure that you get strong foregrounds in your pictures? Before you lift the camera, start looking. Flowering plants, interestingly shaped rocks, fence lines, trees, shrubs can all make good foregrounds. But beware – not all foreground objects work equally well! In particular, be wary of random objects such as a tree branch with no connection to the rest of the image: it will usually look more like an annoying distraction. The foreground needs to relate to the background in some way. If you can see the trunk of the tree, and the ground in which it’s rooted, which perhaps connects to the view beyond, it can work much better than just a branch apparently hovering in mid-air. It’s a complicated topic, and what works for one person may not work for another, but it’s definitely something to consider.

Rocks make such good foregrounds that in some circles they are referred to as JCBs – for ‘Joe Cornish boulders’ –after Joe Cornish, one of the UK’s foremost landscape photographers, who tended to home in on convenient boulders for foreground interest.