You know how it goes, you compose a
great shot but
there are some 'nasty' highlights or whatever distracting the viewer
from the subject.
So, before you press the shutter, how
can you eliminate or reduce the impact of the distractions?
Among your options are to change your
camera angle, shoot at your widest aperture, remove the distraction
before shooting, remove it in PhotoShop, or as I like to do, darken
the background. This can be done with a piece of dark cloth placed
as far back as possible from the subject - a dark colored coat works
too - or by casting a shadow on the busy background.
The latter method was used below
for this pair of before and after samples. In image 1 the background
has multiple light-colored distractions. So, before firing off image
2 I positioned my body such that I was casting a shadow behind
the subject . . .
|
Image 1: Normal |
Image 2: Shadow cast onto
background |
|
Teasel:
Both images were exposed at 250th @ f.8
|
I assume that you can see that image 2 is the superior of the two, but had I somehow created a completely
black background, it would have been really, really stunning!
Here are two more examples . . .
Image 3
Image 4
I thought the background of image 3 was colorful but a bit bland and
lacking depth. So I changed my camera angle so that image 4 with a
dark background and soft out of focus points of light beat the
previous image into first place!
Remember that whatever
you shoot, the final result is only limited by
your imagination. Good shooting!
John Baker, Travel
Images
All images and text are strictly copyrighted by John Baker
Photographer LLC/Travel Images, 1990-2010. Permission in writing
must be sought for any form of reproduction.
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