What's in a background?

Amanda Ryen

All of the elements of a great photo need to come together to make it, well, great.

The subject, whether it a vista, flower, family or house, needs to be properly positioned in the frame, so you can show your viewer exactly what you want them to see.

The foreground needs to direct the viewer's eye where you want them to look.

The background, however, is the key. A lousy background makes a lousy photo, no matter what you do. A background has 2 purposes. First, it gives a sense of place, if that is what is intended. For those images where "place" is not necessary, the background should be either completely blurred out, or just not there.

Where place IS necessary, the background's second task is to NOT DISTRACT from the subject, or possibly even add to the subject's impact.

As you might imagine, I have difficulty coming up with examples of images where I messed up.

Oh, take notes here!

Sage thought for the day. If you screw up a photograph, delete it. It never, ever happened. Then, when people see your library of extraordinary photos, they get the idea that all you EVER take, are perfect photos. It's OK. Your secret will be safe with me.

So,  The little girl with antlers and flowers growing out of her head. This is a classic example of timing gone awry. I confess, this little beauty was showing off a flower girl dress, and was so awesome in her performance that I did not notice the background. Also, the child on the lap on the right hand side distracts from the image.

Kathy Nelson

Backgrounds can add so very much to an image. In this portrait of Kathy Nelson who owns a research data analysis firm, the background adds to the personality she has. She is shown (quite accurately) as someone who is friendly, approachable and comfortable to deal with; but also classy, learned and at the top of her field. Without the appropriate background, the image would have been not nearly as effective.

Sometimes, the moment is right, the expressions are perfect, the lighting is grand, and... the background is covered with trash and people. In this case, prepare yourself for a Photoshop session. David and Lauren here are on a beautiful path in a nature preserve in Harrisburg, PA. The problem was that the path had people and trash all over it.

After several hours of Photoshop work, cloning, adjusting levels, erasing and general enhancements, we got the results here.

Next week, your camera. Does it really matter? No...... and yes....

Oh! Homework! Go to a park, or the lake shore, or even your back yard or work... it doesn't matter. Have someone pose for you, and by YOU moving, not them, experiment with your background. Can they hide the garbage can? Can you bring out the personality of the background? Does it add to their composition?

Play! Have fun! You haven't been to a park in too long anyway.

Until next week!

Warning! Technical Term Ahead!

Depth of Field

Straight from Wikipedia: "In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image."

When I was first learning photography, this was where my eyes glazed over and my brain shorted out.

Lets go back to last week and compare the little mountain and the little portrait on the wheel.

The mountain, or "Landscape" mode makes the aperture as small as possible, and adjusts the length of time that the lens is open so that the sensor or film receives the proper amount of light. The effect is to keep the foreground and background all in crisp focus.

Monroe Payne: "Cornell Rain"

In this case, you have a "Great" or "Large" or "Long" depth of field, or a large area that is acceptably in focus.

Now to the little portrait icon, or "Portrait" mode. In this case, the camera opens the lens as wide as possible to get the plane of the face in focus, but blurs out everything else, in front of and behind the face. Of course, this doesn't HAVE to be used on a face. It's just a good example.

Kim McAlear: "Dew"

This gives you a "Short" or "Small" depth of field.

So how can you use this?

It is our job as photographers to capture images that tell the story, but ONLY the story. A photo of a statue might be nice, but if the photo also captures, in sharp detail, the messy garbage can across the lawn, it takes away from the impact of your image.

We need to eliminate distractions, but I'll cover that in greater detail next week. Controlling your depth of field is one of many strategies we can use to eliminate those distractions.

Conversely, if we have a spectacular, sweeping landscape with some beautiful flowers in the foreground, the image really loses credibility if the flowers are blurry.

Chelsea Gordon: "Guitar Strings"

So where can we use depth of field as an end in itself, as an artistic tool?

Check out Chelsea Gordon's exquisite study of Guitar Strings, or Kim McAlear's Flower with Dew for examples of extremely short DOF. Large aperture, shorter exposure. f1.8

Jennifer Path: "Across the Fence"

Then look at these great depth of field images by myself and Jennifer Path. Small aperture, longer exposure. f22

Modern cameras have aperture priority settings. Lets go back to our little wheel. Aperture Priority means that the camera will accept your aperture setting manually, then magically adjust the shutter speed to compensate. The setting is usually identified as "A"-something. Canon cameras show "Av" on the wheel... The example last week just has "A".

Monroe Payne: "Theater Entrance"

Homework for this week - play with the aperture priority setting on your camera. Use the guitar strings and the barbed wire fence as templates. Then, intentionally set the aperture the other way. See which way is better. Have a little fun with it.

IthacaStock.com images by Kim McAlear, Chelsea Gordon, Monroe Payne and Jennifer Path. Please visit their galleries at IthacaStock.com.

IthacaStockTips is a free service from IthacaStock.com, and is intended to be used by individuals to increase their proficiency in photography. The information here may be copied and used, provided credit is given to Monroe Payne and IthacaStock.com LLC.

Settings

Booooooorrrring....... to quote Mindy when she was 14....

Owners manuals are a drag, but surprisingly useful from time to time. But they are not known for their riveting prose, or their story line. Remember the Manual in "Beetlejuice?" "This reads like stereo instructions..."

I'll try to make a little sense here of those little icons on the dial or screen of your camera.

Every camera is a little different, so I'll stick to the basics,

First, is automatic. This assumes you have no brain, and are only barely capable of pressing one button. The camera does everything for you except aim. It determines whether you need flash, how to focus, what your exposure should be, whether your hands shake, and if you've had too much coffee.

Ok, yours might look a little different...

Automatic has some uses, particularly in those spur of the moment instances, where if you have to think, you will lose the moment, and the shot. But in most cases, I avoid automatic. But not coffee.

Second, and more useful is "P" or Program Automatic. We are slowly taking control over from the little computer in the camera. We can determine whether to use flash or not, and we can compensate for the overall brightness of the images. The camera wants to see an "18% Gray" image. The palm of your hand is a good approximation of the brightness of 18% gray. But what if you are shooting on a sunny day in a snow covered field? The camera will try to average the scene at 18% gray, making it look muddy. In this case, you can tell the camera to overexpose the image. The reverse is true for dark scenes.

Now we get to the icons, or little pictures on the wheel. The little face is "Portrait Mode", which adjusts the camera to blur out the background while keeping your subject in focus. Yes, the camera is still thinking for you, but you are telling it to think in a very specific way.

The little icon of the mountain does exactly the opposite of the portrait mode. It tries to get everything in the viewfinder in focus from the extreme foreground to the distance. It does this by making the aperture smaller, and increasing the ISO (sensitivity of the sensor).

The flower icon means "Macro" mode, or extreme closeup. It allows you to take very crisp images very close to your subjects.

The Sports icon tries to get clear images of things that happen very fast, like hockey or lacrosse.

I have to admit, I don't use those settings, except "P", but it is good to know what they do.

My goal for you, is to have you thinking for yourself, rather than depending on a thumbnail sized electronic brain do it. But while you are learning, play with these settings, see what they do and how they affect the images you take.

Next week, we'll play with "Depth of Field". I promise it will be riveting!