Framing one of the senior elements in composing a great shot. You need to be able to take the frame of your shot and fill it properly and give the image a proper frame itself.

The best way to train your eye is to use this tool that Ansel Adams used to train his students, as you can see above. The black rectangle is cut out, giving you the same frame size of most digital and 35mm cameras.

Here’s the simple steps of learning to use this deceptively simple, yet powerful tool:

1. Click here to open framing-card.pdf

2. Print it on a white 3×5 card (or larger card and trim it)

3. Using an exacto knife or scissors, cut out the black rectangle, so you have a view-hole.

4. Now go out and practice, “getting shots” by looking through the frame.

5. You can get the effect of zooming in and out by moving the card closer or farther away from your eye.

6. Once you have a “shot” that you like, look at each corner of the frame and move around to adjust what is included in the frame.

7. Now, just continue doing this over and over until it is second nature.

Don’t worry about the zone system yet, we’ll cover that more later, it is a way to also look at the “shot” in terms of black, white and shades in between.

Remember to have fun with this and tell me how this goes for you.