10 Vignette Photos for Inspiration

In photography and optics, vignetting (from French “vignette”, pronounced /vɪnˈjɛtɪŋ/) is a reduction of an image’s brightness or saturation at the periphery compared to the image center. The word vignette, from the same root as vine, originally referred to a decorative border in a book. Later, the word came to be used for a photographic portrait which is clear in the center, and fades off at the edges. A similar effect occurs when filming projected images or movies off a projection screen. The resulting so-called “hotspot” effect defines a cheap home-movie look where no proper telecine is used.

Vignetting is often an unintended and undesired effect caused by camera settings or lens limitations. However, it is sometimes purposely introduced for creative effect, such as to draw attention to the center of the frame. A photographer may deliberately choose a lens which is known to produce vignetting to obtain the effect, or it may be introduced with the use of special filters or post-processing procedures.

Vignetting by Funadium

Flirting with Vignette by Abvidars

Mental Vignette by Cormacphelan

I <3 Vignette by Julie Laurent

Big Tree Vignette by TC01

Musica by Gatokinetik

Portrait by Misto91

Yawning Baby by Gessman

Algun Vignette by Karen FH

Legend Vignette by Joakim KNA

I hope you all enjoyed these inspirational pictures. Vignetting can be used with portraits or real-life shots to bring about a dramatic mood. Intense emotion can be portrait when you add a dark or light color around the photo. I really helps draw the attention in on the subject. If you have any other techniques you’d like to learn about, know of some really kick ass vignette photos, or just want to shout out let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear what you think of this post and why. Talk to you all later!