Robert Keeley discusses a key element of every composition; one which doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.
There are a lot of factors which go into making a strong
image, but arguably one of the least thought about elements is what goes into
the background behind your key subject. Whether it’s a shot of the family at a
barbeque, or a majestic peak in an untainted wilderness, every picture can be
improved if you think about your background. Basically, bad backgrounds can
kill the impact of your picture.
Unfortunately a lot of less experienced photographers rate
this part of their composition a long way down the list of priorities when they
decide to shoot a photo.
Partly this is related to how we view any given scene.
Our eyes don’t always take in an environment the way our camera’s
optical tool (in this case our lens of choice) does. It’s easy to be distracted
in creating a strong image of our key objective while our brains defer thinking
about what surrounds it.
Often, it’s only afterwards in reviewing our images that we
see clearly the mistakes we have made. In the old days of film cameras this
could be catastrophic, because going back “to the scene of the crime” could
sometimes be impossible, or at the very least difficult. But digital technology
has helped us a lot in this regard.
By quickly reviewing images on the back of our cameras, we
can soon see what might not have been obvious at the time of capture.
The problems can be numerous, ranging from the classic
“lightpole out of the head” through to excessively bright spots, or objects or
even people wandering half in (and half out) of our scene. It’s important to
remember that distractions such as these weaken the overall impact of our
pictures, if they’re not deliberately conceived as part of the composition. But
they are easily solved.
Once you have trained your eye to actually notice what’s in
the background of your shot, essentially there are two ways to minimise or
remove any distractions – you can change your shooting angle to place the
offending distraction out of the frame, or if you can’t easily move, you can
opt to use the power of a shallow depth of field setting to blur the
distractions out of focus.
Here’s a few points to keep in mind about backgrounds each
and every time you lift your camera’s viewfinder to your eye.
• Train your eye to check the background. You can’t fix it
if you don’t notice it. Most cameras are designed to easily capture a respectable
picture. Their tiny computers can sense a whole bunch of factors that make up
an image, but they don’t know what you want to shoot. Often a default depth of
field setting will keep a background which you haven’t noticed nice and sharp –
even if it’s a lightpole or a Macca’s sign that you’re not even interested in.
You have to check what’s there.
• Once you’ve trained your eye to check what is actually behind
your key subject, determine whether you need to re-position yourself to remove
it, or if you’d be better off using a shallow depth of field to blur it out.
Moving is simple, but blur can be effected in a couple of ways. You can try
setting shallow depth of field (f/2.8, f/4, or even f/5.6 can work well), or
you could switch to a telephoto lens and step back a distance from your
subject. This also allows you to crop in tight on whatever you’re
photographing.
• One neat method of checking for distractions is to run
your eye around the edge of your frame before pressing the shutter. It’s
amazing what distractions you may notice that seem ‘half in, half out’ or your composition.
This is often fixed very simply by slightly re-composing your scene, but it’s
amazing how distracting (and detracting) it can be when you don’t pick up the
problem.
• Distractions might not be objects or people, but a
disparate array of lighting. Camera sensors don’t have the range our eyes do,
so that deep shadows or extremely bright reflections may lead to a lack of
detail or blown-out highlights in your scene. Using a shallow depth of field
won’t fix this problem. It’s better to move so the hotspot isn’t in the scene,
or sometimes you simply avoid taking the photo.
A shallow depth of field can be used to blur out distracting elements in the background and make the subject 'pop'.
Distractions might not be objects or people, but a
disparate array of lighting. Here, the photographer has moved around to the right and taken a few steps toward the model to simplify the background and eliminate a distracting hotspot.
This poor lady appears to have a branch growing out of her head. It pays to check the background before you fire the shutter.