Portrait Backgrounds Pros and Cons

One of the best ways to make the subject of your photos pop is to eliminate extra elements in a picture. This usually means keeping your background as clean as possible. The most obvious solution: shoot in a studio. However, this isn’t always possible. Besides, there are ways to clean up the background while still shooting on location.

· Put them against a wall: A wall is usually the cleanest background you can get.

· Light up your subject: Get your subject in a bright area so they pop up against a dark background. One way to do this is to put them near a window. By doing this, you can force other elements in the frame into the shadows.

· Darken your subject: Sometimes, you can blow out your background to highlight your subject. You can point a light behind them, or you can bring them under the shade of a tree and force the background to almost white. One additional effect of this is that you get a nice halo around your subject.

· Change your angle: Make the sky your background by getting low and looking up at your subject. You can also use the ground by getting high up above.

· Get up close and personal: By filling your frame with your subject, you eliminate the background entirely. This technique works especially well for babies and for people with striking eyes. Then again, this might also bring out any flaws on a subject’s face.

The outdoor portrait above was taken by Key Peninsula Middle School student Jessica Kahler from Gig Harbor, WA. Read more about Photography at Key Peninsula middle school here.

Of course, there are times when you want the background to be part of the image:

If you’re traveling, for example, you might want to include a famous landmark in your photo. If you’re shooting a portrait of a chef, you can make the kitchen an integral part of the shot.

You can also use the background to put contrast in your shot. In a sporting event, for example, you can focus on the sadness of players on a losing team but still keep the winning team celebrating in the background.

The point here is to use other elements in your shot to complement your background. Sometimes, it’s the little details in the picture that make a truly outstanding shot.
—Luis Cruz

Comments

[Joe]

>>Put them against a wall

No, please. Not against a wall. Ten feet from a wall. Against the wall and you'll like like you shot in a prison. Keep the wall far enough back so that you benefit from some DOF.

[Andrew Ferguson]

Yeah I'm in agreement with Joe here. Maybe not quite ten feet, defending on your aperture.

Up against a wall is just never flattering, you've gotta have some distance there.

You can get away with shorter distances if you've got an extra flash you can put behind them to trigger on the wall.