Posting Seventeen

“Watch Your Backgrounds”
 Part Two

Thanks to Hockomock Digital Photographer, Rick Alvarnaz, for his permission to share this with you.


So did you find any distracting areas since we last met? Were you able to step to the left or the right to eliminate them? Good for you!

Rick suggests several different techniques you can use to give you the kind of background to enhance your main subject.

The most obvious technique would be your point of view. Can you move up, back, sideways, or lower to the ground to give your subject a more pleasing background? This simple movement is greatly underused. All things being equal, the distance from the lens to the subject also affects the sharpness of the background. So the closer the focused object is to the lens, the less in focus the background should be. Also, the further the background is from the main subject, the less detail will be seen.

Camera settings can help to create the proper background. The f/stop on your lens controls how sharp your background will be. A low number f/stop (f/1.4 or f/2.8) will help to soften while the higher values of f/16 or f/22 will more clearly define that background and make it sharper.

Ever notice those long lenses on the sidelines of sporting events? These “big glass” lenses are used to isolate the main subject from the usually distracting stadium crowd or other players. These “monster” lenses are very helpful in wildlife photography as they are capable of blowing out the cluttered environments behind the animals.
 

 
In the end it’s all about you and how much of your background do you want in the overall image

Part Three will look at how filters and some of the tools from the digital darkroom can impact those backgrounds.