Background

Background makes or breaks a picture even more than lighting. A cluttered background busies up a photo and detracts from what you want to say. Nothing in the background to add perspective gives boredom light. The ordinary is how a person naturally views things like a person standing in a job site. We may focus on the person, or under circumstances we may see what they are doing first. Remember it’s not just looking at things, like a mise en scene in a movie, but what’s in and out of frame.

YOU are the master of composition. YOU control the horizontal and the vertical. YOU ultimately decide your background’s perspective. The representation of three dimensions into two is technical and you should balance the scene as if it were a pop-up and gonna be seen in three dimensions. Think foreground, mid-ground, and background. Place your subject at several different palces inthe depth of field to add a nice effect.

To add different perspective to your subjects, play with the horizon in each shot in conjunction with the subject. Ordinarily keep the horizon line from running through the middle of someone’s head. Adjust your perspective to move the horizon line up and down within the frame. Get a worm’s eye view of the subject to make them seem huge, or larger than life, by effectively placing the horizon well below their head. Make people appear diminished by placing the horizon above them.