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Pete's Tips 6 - check the background
12/11/2008 - 10:15 AM
197 (221)I was photographing fungi yesterday and, like many ePHOTOzine members, shooting subjects like this along with birds or flowers, I tend to shoot at a wide aperture to throw the background totally out of focus.
So today's tip is look at the background, because even when it's out of focus you can often see distracting dark or light shapes, maybe caused by trees, people or a building. Often moving the camera a couple of inches left or right (or up or down) or at a slight angle will result in a fuss free backdrop.
Tags: Background, Clutter free, Composition
Comments
Yeah, I've got yellow birch leaves and white cornus stems behind my bird feeder but there's not much I can do about that other than wreck the garden 
I really love these diffused backgrounds, I really do, and we have stunning pictures here on EPZ to prove that.
But to be honest, sometimes showing a bit more of the surroundings is quite refreshing in photographs! For example with birds, it gives a sense of the environment where the picture was taken, instead of a sort of anonymous background. Or it tells more about the season, or time of day it was taken.
So sometimes a less diffused background can tell a better and/or complete story..... Though I agree that the background should not compete with the main subject of the image.
Jacqueline
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