Improve Your Photography: Play the Layering Game

I love watching movies, and I often compare photography and storytelling to movies. Imagine a movie with only one character. If the character isn’t incredible, it might not be a very interesting movie. It’s the same with photography: I’ll shoot one subject if the subject is great. If not, I’ll try to add more characters or subjects to my frame to make things more interesting.

I have already covered this topic of storytelling in another tutorial about layers in photography: the more people you add to your frame, the more interesting your story can be. When travelling in Asia, we often face busy scenes like markets or street life. It’s important to capture many subjects in our frame to make the scene look and feel the way it really is.

If you travel to Asia and your goal is to take photos that capture the atmosphere and mood of the locations you visit, it would be a pity to only take portraits. Asia is a busy part of the world, with lots of people in the streets, many activities, and it always feels lively.

Adding layers to your images will help make viewers feel the hustle and bustle, whether it’s in the streets, markets, or fields. If you like documentary or street photography, adding layers to your photographs will help you show the locations as they really are.

One of the main reasons I love adding layers to my images is that it makes my photographs unique. There are so many elements or people involved in creating the composition that your images will never be the same from one day to another. This is one of the best ways to create original photos when travelling.

Travelling around and taking candid photos of busy scenes is the opposite of photographers who stage their photographs to win competitions. You can come up with unexpected compositions due to your many subjects moving and doing things in unexpected ways. What you need to do is have the skills to be ready to capture the moments when they happen, which we will discuss later in this tutorial.

Instead of focusing on one subject, which is easier to compose, try composing images with many subjects if you’d like to challenge yourself. Honestly, it’s not easy. Layering many elements in your frame and having them placed perfectly to still come up with clean compositions that aren’t messy is no easy task.

But if you’re up for a good challenge that will improve your photography skills, this is a good one. If you learn to photograph busy scenes and be reactive to capture the right moments, you will be able to shoot anything related to people, like weddings, events, etc.

Yes, I’m talking to you, all the 70-200 shooters who are scared to use a wide-angle lens. If you’re reading this, it probably means you’re keen to challenge yourself. And there’s nothing better than using a wide-angle lens to add complexity to the shooting and the final images. 

If you visit busy scenes like fish markets or bustling streets, your images will better capture the mood and action happening in front of you with a wide-angle lens. A 35mm lens would be a great start, then you can slowly go wider to a 28mm, and then to a 24mm lens if you’d like a really good challenge! Shooting with a telephoto lens will always isolate one subject and remove everything else, which isn’t what we want to go for when trying to add layers to our images. 

I have already covered the topic of using wide-angle lenses to photograph people here.

For layered photo compositions, it makes sense to close your aperture. Not always, but it makes sense to try and show everything in your frame when capturing busy scenes.

The choice of aperture is a personal creative choice, but I think the wider you are and the more you’re trying to show, the sharper these elements should be. Of course, this “rule” is meant to be broken, which we will talk about later on.

Also, shooting with a small aperture (between f/8 and f/13) will allow you to be faster and more efficient at capturing a moment as most things in your frame will be in focus. This means you don’t have to refocus every single time you take a picture. Focus once on your background, or 2/3rd into your image, and you’re good to go.

If you take photos of very busy scenes in Asia like I do, you know it can be a complete mess. I often say that markets in Asia offer many great photo opportunities but are hard work.

To make your life easier, try to find what I call a “static subject.” Someone in the frame who isn’t moving. It’s easy to find such subjects in markets as many people are just sitting around waiting for customers. If you find one, or better, 2 or 3 static subjects, you then simply have to wait for 1 or 2 people to walk into your frame to create a layered composition.

It’s much easier to capture nice layered photos of busy scenes when you’re familiar with your surroundings. This means you’ll always get better results when visiting a scene more than once.

I’ve captured some of my favourite layered photos in fishing villages where I go several times a month while running my photography tours in Hoi An. This familiarity helps me anticipate what’s going to happen and show my students where the good photo opportunities are. Busy scenes can be very overwhelming when visited for the first time.

Think about going to a fishing village where 300 people are haggling for fish on a beach. Yes, it can be overwhelming, so don’t hesitate to visit such locations as many times as you can.

When you’re more familiar with a scene, it’s easier to anticipate the action. For example, in some busy fishing villages in Vietnam, I know that when boats arrive with their loads of fish, people will start walking (or running) towards them to be the first to buy the fish. Once everyone reaches the boat, the scene becomes chaotic, so it’s crucial to capture the moments before they reach the boats.

Another example is shooting a busy market. With experience, you’ll know how people behave and what kind of actions you can capture for better storytelling. For example, when I photograph the market in Hoi An old town, I know that many people wear red flip-flops and carry red baskets. If I find some interesting red foreground, I simply wait for someone wearing these colours to walk into my background.

A technical tip: if you know you’re waiting for a subject to come to a certain place in your frame, focus on the spot where you know the subject will be. This allows you to be very fast in capturing the moment when your subject is at the exact spot you want.

Starting with the rule of thirds, then adding more elements in your frame, will eventually lead to compositions including the golden ratio, which is very pleasing to the eyes. I’ve described this process in another tutorial, and it works particularly well when taking photos of busy scenes.

It’s said that layered images are more pleasing when the background is in focus and the foreground is a bit soft. When I shoot busy scenes, I tend to focus on the background elements or, following landscape photography rules, about 2/3rd into the image. This works well if the main action is in the background and the foreground elements are more like “supporting characters.”

But there are exceptions. Sometimes I find myself shooting a busy scene, focusing on the background, and then I notice a subject in the foreground doing something interesting or giving a great expression. It’s worth shifting your focus to this foreground element to add emotion and character to your image.

If you spot an interesting foreground subject, don’t hesitate to focus on it (your camera’s face detection should easily detect a foreground subject) and even open your aperture. If you have a great subject, it’s worth isolating them from the rest. You can still capture a busy and layered scene while keeping the main focus on that subject.

Using a slow shutter speed in busy layered images can create a sense of chaos and dynamism. This works well when this is the kind of emotion you want to convey.

A tip: find a subject that isn’t moving (like someone staring into the distance or resting) and use them as your main character. All other people in your frame will be blurry, helping isolate your static subject.

For busy scenes, I like to use a shutter speed of around 1/10th of a second. This allows some elements to be frozen while blurring others. Modern cameras and lenses are often stabilized, which helps freeze background elements at such speeds.

Conclusion

If you like photographing people, mastering the art of layering in photography is a great way to make busy scenes feel busy and make your images more engaging. Challenge yourself, get familiar with your surroundings, and play the layering game to elevate your photography skills!