Seeing through the layers: layering content in photographs can build depth, substance and context--creating images that communicate.

Expressive photographs often use layers of meaning to deepen our understanding of the images. Layers are an organizing device, supplying content or context that helps us communicate our message. (I'm talking here about basic photographic structure, not about electronic layering, the post-processing technique often used to enhance or build an image in Adobe Photoshop.)

We can read these layers from front to back or from side to side. We can juxtapose them incongruously or create perspective by implying depth. We can lead our viewers through an image by relating foreground, middle ground and background layers of information. We can relate subject layers to context layers to help an image make its point. We can use two, three or even four layers to build substance, enhancing not only the image's organization but also its meaning. Sometimes we can create coherence by contrasting layers of soft and sharp planes of focus. We can even use layers to help abstract the subject or context, the final touch in building images that communicate.

I photographed the first example (above) in an old cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I used three layers to link two graves awash in a sea of golden weeds. A foreground layer of weeds holds an isolated, tilted tombstone. A middle layer holds a fenced enclosure--the subject of the image. The fence protects a grave site that is consumed by the weeds. Finally, a background layer shows a vulnerable fringe of green, soon to join the sea of gold that envelops these forgotten graves. Together, these layers express what happens when generations expire and leave their dead to become lost in time.

I made the second example (opposite, bottom left) in the Parc de Bruxelles in Belgium. There are three layers in this image as well. In the foreground, a small audience of casually dressed people sits on the grass, offering an incongruous context for the more formally dressed man who dominates the middle-ground layer, yet who appears smaller in scale than the people in the foreground. He strides purposefully through the park, past the fountain that stands before the Belgian Parliament in the background layer. The combination of contradictions here--the disparities in scale, costume and activity level--creates contrast and tension. The three layers not only showcase the relationship between content and context, they also lead us through the image, creating a sense of depth perspective.

My third example (top), a photo of a man selling Chinese New Year treats in Yangon, Myanmar, is also a three-layered image. I filled the foreground layer with the vividly colored fancy food topped with burning incense sticks. To give the food context, I placed a very pleased but reserved-looking vendor in the middle-ground layer right behind it, in softer focus. He looks right at us, as if to say, "Enjoy," yet takes second billing to the food. I add contrast to this scene by bringing a touch of dark abstraction to the background layer.

I made my final example (above, right) early on a weekend morning in Santa Fe. This artisan had to cross two streets to get to her stall at the market, and was slowly dragging a wheeled cart behind her, loaded with her chair and merchandise. I stacked and compressed the three layers of this image on top of each other with a long telephoto lens. The foreground context layer is filled with a pedestrian walkway leading across the frame, while the middle-ground subject layer features another walkway leading toward us, along with the artisan herself, head lowered to watch each step as she makes her way in our direction. I offer additional context in the semi-abstracted background layer: the corner of the La Fonda Hotel, a Santa Fe landmark. The woman seems trapped between these layers, trying to gather her strength to negotiate these barriers.

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Send photos for possible use in this column to The Douglis Visual Workshops, 2505 E. Carol Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85028 USA.

Philip N. Douglis, ABC, directs The Douglis Visual Workshops, now in its 34th year of training communicators in visual literacy. Douglis, an IABC Fellow, is the most widely known consultant on editorial photography for organizations. He offers his comprehensive six-person "Communicating with Pictures" workshops every May and October in Oak Creek Canyon, near Sedona, Arizona. For registration information, call +1 602.493.6709 or e-mail [e-mail].

You can view Douglis' multi-gallery cyberbook on expressive digital travel photography at www.pbase.com/pnd1.