the process of remembering: a photoblog by andrew huth

“Foreground/Background Lesson”

This post is for some wedding photographers I mentor.  A question I often get asked is, “What are some tips for interesting people pictures when you have a boring background to work with?”  Well, boring backgrounds are a common problem and I had to deal with it during a wedding this weekend at a nice, but fairly uninspiring, golf course.

Here are two suggestions that might help.  If the background is nothing to write home about then why not look to the foreground for inspiration?  Sometimes what you put in front of your subject is as important as what is behind them.  For the first picture, I shot through the branches and leaves of a nearby tree to add some foreground interest to the photo.  For the second shot I kept it even more simple and framed a tree in front of the group portrait.

Another suggestion to solve a boring background is to make it even more boring.  For the portrait of the guys I laid down on the ground to nearly eliminate the background all together and angled my camera so as to cause a lens flare.  The flare and strange angle almost makes you forget that the background is pretty much a boring, solid white color.