Doorways and Archways as Compositional Frames

This is one of my favorite photos outside of my usual haunts in and around Monumental Washington.  

You might recognize Venice’s San Marco cathedral basilica in the background. But that’s just backdrop. The subject is a mother leaning over her little girl, framed in an arched loggia of the Piazza San Marco. 

The photo has three distinct layers: foreground arch closest to the camera, then the arch with mother and daughter, then St. Mark’s square and its famous church. The image catches the eye because each layer stands apart but then works in harmony with the other layers. 

And it was mostly by lucky fortune that I got the shot. (Although I do subscribe to the adage: Fortune comes to the prepared.)

I had rounded a corner to come into the piazza when I suddenly saw the woman and child in the loggia directly in front of me. I only had time for one or two quick shots. But I did have the presence of mind to crouch as low as my aging body would permit, which moved the globe over the woman’s head higher into the frame. Otherwise it would have blocked the central dome of the basilica behind it. 

The shot also works with a tighter crop that I used for my annual photo calendar.  

I have a slight preference for the first version because you see the tops of both arches echoing each other. 

My real point for this piece, though, is that any doorway with any person in it can make for a pleasing photographic composition. The doorway provides a frame within a frame guiding the viewer’s eye to the subject, and as a bonus, if the image includes detail in front of or behind the subject – this one at St. Marco’s has both – you get strong three dimensionality in your shot.

This idea of finding your subject in a doorway or archway has been around for a long time. Here are two Annunciation paintings by the Renaissance master Fra Angelico, with Mary seated in an arched loggia. The first is a fresco which remains in its original setting in the Convent of San Marco in Florence. The second is a painted altarpiece that can be found in the Prado Museum in Madrid. (He originally painted the work for his own convent church in Fiesole, Italy.) In both, the frame-within-a-frame starts at the front of the image, and additional archways behind the angel and Mary give the paintings three-dimensional dynamism. 

Your subject need not be sacred for this compositional device to work effectively. So if you see a doorway or an archway (and windows work too), it pays to stick around for a little bit and see if some interesting people show up inside your frame. (Or even near your frame, as the last image below shows.)

The same principle applies to doorways created, as in these two images, by large pillars at the edge of an inside space. The first is from inside the Lincoln Memorial looking out; the second from outside looking in. 

Try not to be too literal. The doorway as frame doesn’t always require that the subject be positioned inside the doorway. Here is an image that works when the subject, a bicycle with an empty produce tray strapped to its back wheel, leans next to a doorway. Notice how the light spilling onto the steps  creates lines that guide your eye to the bicycle. 

Once you tune your eyes to watch out for doorways, you will see many opportunities for well-framed shots.