It seems that one of the least thought about aspects of composition is the idea of foreground in our images. Nearly all photographers pay at least some attention to the background of their images, but it seems that many don't pay nearly enough attention to the foreground in their frame. Foreground is an important aspect for a variety of reasons, but perhaps the biggest is because of the fact that foreground adds depth to images that might otherwise come across as flat. This is particularly true when shooting at wide, open apertures such as f2.8 or faster.

We like to call this idea of using background and foreground together “The Sandwich Theory”, because that's literally how we think of it. The "meat" is the subject of the image and the foreground and the background are like the pieces of wheat bread (no Wonder Bread allowed J). Of course, not every image has to make good use of foreground to be good or even have a real sense of depth, but it certainly helps.

We often find when we're shooting that all it takes to frame your subject with a nice foreground is to move slightly to the left or right to include a new aspect into the image. While you may have to work consciously to incorporate foreground at first, after even just a little practice it will become second nature to consider the foreground and you won't have to think about it at all.

Take a look at the following examples that all use different types of foregrounds in different ways that help the image to have more impact. Imagine what the image would look like without the foreground.

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