Sep 23, 20203 min read

Composition (Layering) by Nicole Wang

Layering : Lesson 3 By Nicole Wang Hi, Ladies! I’m Nicole Wang (from @nicolewang1122). I live in Willamette Valley in Oregon with my husband and two kids. I’m a full time Medicine doctor. And with the “boring” medicine as my background, photography is my passion and creative outlet.

Before the year of 2015, I would never imagine myself traveling with a camera everywhere, waiting for perfect light and shadows for hours, and having so much fun editing photos. That all changed the instance I became a mom. Realizing how fast the kids grew up, I wanted to capture every moment of them. My skill has somewhat improved in past years, and in 2018 I accomplished my 1 st 365 project.

Living in Oregon, I’m a big fan of outdoor photographing! I love shooting my two littles in the beautiful scenes and telling the stories. I also discovered incredible beauties from tiny creatures be it a wild flower, or a raindrop sleeping on a leaf. My macro lenses have helped me to embed myself into the world of small.

Today I’m so excited to share some of my thoughts of layering with you.

My Gears

I shoot with a Canon 5D Mark III, and my outdoor to-go lens is 50 mm 1.2, I also use 85 mm 1.8 a lot. And I usually use 35 mm 1.4 and lensbaby edge 50 mm 3.2 as indoor shooting.

What is layering?

In general, layering is a concept of composition which reproduces the three dimensional reality by two dimensional images. As we know, a picture consists of a foreground, a middle ground and a background. Literally, layering is filling foreground as the traditional understanding.

What can layering create?

 Stories

 Framing

 Colors

 Depth

Storytelling: This photo was taken in a late afternoon in a Starbucks store. I captured the moment outside of the window. My son was concentrating on reading his bottle while my daughter was looking around.

Framing: This photo was taken by my husband for the Mother’s Day. We were centered in the frame and surrounded by the foreground branches and light.

Colors: The foreground dry weeds added the complementary colors to the foggy sky.

DOF: when focusing on the foreground layer, you can have a dreamy and creative DOF.

How to create layering?

Look around, and try to use any elements which you can potentially shoot through to avoid flatness. What elements can you look for? Grasses, weeds, flowers, branches, leaves, trees, poles, window, toys, people, snow, bubbles, and you name it. Want to be more creative? Experimenting to shoot through a plastic wrap, or a copper ring, etc.

When you find the elements for layering, remember to step back and include them in the frame.

Used the pole on the left side to create some foreground and the feeling of peeking.

The orange leaves created the layering.

The colorful bokeh on the left side became the perfect foreground to enhance the Christmas atmosphere.

Falling leaves can create fantastic layering.

Used the trees to create foreground, framing and DOF.

The iron door can be used as layering too!

As well as windows and glass.

Window and branches here made great layers.

Bubbles.

Flowers.

Tips:

 Bear the idea of creating layering in your mind, and look for the elements on purpose.  Step back and lower your angle.

 Think about the color theory to enhance your story.

 Out of focus on purpose.

Post editing:

Yes, I sometimes use overlays to enhance the layering effect. But remember you have to use it appropriately and naturally. For instance, I will not add bubbles if they are not playing them.

In this snow day, not much snowing when I captured the moment, so I added the snow overlay to enhance the snow.

I tried to shoot through a plastic wrap but my daughter totally lost her patience when I was manipulating the wrap, so I failed to shoot through, and eventually I used a overlay to create the effect.

Some thoughts:

Repetitive horizonal patterns (not necessary as a foreground) in pictures can create phenomenal layers.