Photography Tip: Mind Your Foreground!

Many amateur photographers forget to pay attention to their foreground. They either

• Exclude it entirely: which may ignore possible framing possibilities (this then usually puts the subject in the foreground).
• Include too much: which produces visual clutter. 

Photographers should first determine if foreground adds to the composition (it's perfectly fine to not include it). If so, they then need to determine how much to add.

Here, I used the foreground to give us a feel that we're part of the game. I suppose I could have angled the camera lower to further emphasize this point of view, but I wanted to demonstrate all three visible levels: the foreground (black pieces), middle ground (the two center pawns), and background (the gray/white wall and the brown pieces).