Getting Better Fast
Let’s talk about getting better fast. Clever how my lead sentence reflects my title isn’t it? Cleverness aside, there are some things you can do to get better in a hurry. Just don’t get so good that you come gunning for my job!
One of the things that separates the greenhorn from the cagey veteran is the way he handles backgrounds. The background of a photo can help, hurt or do nothing at all. When I was a young shooter one of the things that really got me was backgrounds. I was so intent on the main subject that I seldom noticed what was going on in the background. That sometimes still bites me but over the years I have gotten better at watching my backgrounds.
The photos in this post are an example of how the background can either help or hurt. The first shot of the cannon actually firing is a fine moment and I like the picture. The only problem is I can’t look at the photo without seeing those cars in the background. The cars totally ruin the feel of the picture. Were it not for the cars it could be 1864 all over again. (Yes, it is sadly true that in the South we still fight the Civil War and some here feel that we are winning!)
The next photo is just a few seconds later as they gunners swab the breech and smoke has completely obscured the background. Man, where is Matthew Brady? The smoke helps deliver a feeling that is missing in the first photo. The smokes erases the signs that we are in the present day. It also makes a perfectly clean backdrop that allows you to focus on the soldiers.
Most of the time you won’t have any cannon smoke handy to blot out your background. Do not fear, there are a bunch of other ways to handle a messy or distracting background. If you remember seeing the photo by Joe Johnston of the Cal Poly pitcher you will see a very effective use of the low angle to clean up the background. Now that you have the low down, go high angle. This is very effective in shooting sports because it gives you the relatively uncluttered playing surface for a background rather than the distractions of the sidelines or the fans.
Light can also be used to clean up the background. If you use strobes on the main subject, you can usually drop the background down to either deemphasize it or eliminate altogether. A long lens will help you blur a distracting background while the wide angle can be used to deemphasize the background because it creates a very dominant foreground while diminishing the size of objects in the background. There are many techniques for doing this and these are only a few. The main thing is learning to keep backgrounds from becoming a distraction in your pictures.
Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
If the South tries to rise again, there are those in Ohio that are ready.
Sorry, I was trying to post a link to this photo.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlharris/494762355/in/set-72157600206803891
Um we don’t necessarily refer to it as the “civil war”… it was “The War of Northern Aggression”.
great post as always…
Well, it didn’t take you folks long to respond to a little cannon fire from the south now did it?
Wow, you are right. I fall into the category where a lot of times I am totally oblivious of the surrounding because all I wanted to concentrate on was just the subject matter.
[...] with the effect that I totally forgot about the background. Funnily, I was reading about this in a blog post, about how an amateur and a veteran shoots and how the newbies would miss out some areas like the [...]