It's All in the Framing

 

Two pictures, taken seconds apart.from the same location.

The difference is obvious. The difference is framing.

There they are, sailboats at a distance

Move the camera to the right a bit, and that one boat, although off-center, is central to whatever story this picture tells. Call that the main character.

The others, secondary, even tertiary.

It's like that with writing. We can take the same view and skew it to have our readers focus on whatever is vital to the story at that moment. I prefer to not remind people of this (and yet I'm posting it for the world to see) but with a bit of manipulation, we can work some sleight-of-hand and make you look at what we need you to see.

If the second picture, for example, were a story, your focus would be right there.on that framed sailboat.
But you never know. It could be a casual observer, and those other boats might be heading its way, en masse, for some nefarious purposes. And as a reader, I, for one, find it fun when I don't see it coming.

It's all thanks to the framing.

Jody Feldman loves to play around with camera angles. One of her favorite occasions happened at the Louvre in Paris where, instead of shooting the Venus de Milo from the front like most do, she walked around and shot her from the back. Then others followed.