Passive and Active Framing.

Passive and Active framing in photography are just two of the ways to frame an image.

Passive framing is where it draws you out of the image, there may be a little piece of an object in the image that draws the viewer to look further out of the image. With Passive framing a lot of photographers use a wide angle lenses to create the effect of wanting to look further in to the image, they also use loose cropping so that nothing within the image is tight and restricted in the frame. An example of Passive framing by Helen Levitt.

Image by Helen Levitt.

Active framing is where it draws you into the image and makes the viewer concentrate on one main thing. Photographers use close cropping for this type of framing so that they can choose what they want within their photograph. They also use long lenses so that they can capture what they want within their image. An example of Active framing by Richard Renaldi.

Image by Richard Renaldi