I'm here today to tell you that your subject doesn't matter. Ok, your subject does matter, but the background is just as important! A good background can make or break your photo, even if your bird is in focus, properly exposed, and in good light. The background paints a picture - it shows your viewers a bit about the bird's environment. After all, you're trying to tell a story, right?
There are all sorts of backgrounds to choose from, depending on what you're trying to convey. Sometimes, a simple and minimal environment will do the trick. I'll often shoot with my aperture wide open, giving me a minimal depth of field to emphasize just the bird. Mostly this trick is done in situations where the background is very busy, and anything more will distract from the main subject. This out of focus background is called bokeh, a Japanese term describing the quality of the blur produced by this technique. Generally, the wider the aperture (lower values), the softer the blur. Below are some examples of different photos that I've taken over the past year. I've included the optimized version that I've posted before, and another photo from the same area that was taken just a few minutes before or after, to show just how dramatic of a difference the background makes.
One of my favorite duckling photos ever! I was very low to the ground (just eight inches above the water). Using a wide aperture (f/5.6) with my telephoto lens and a low point of view created a beautiful background and blurred out the cotton from the cottonwoods that was floating on top. The fact that the duckling was closer to me than the background helped to blur the water even more.
Another photo, taken the same day as the photo above, but with a higher viewpoint and a farther subject more of the busy background becomes visible.
A photo I took just a few weeks ago! Just moments before they were swimming in less ideal light, and in a more distracting background. I love the way this one turned out!
See the distracting background in this photo? Taken just seconds before the one above.
A pied billed grebe. Not my favorite photo, because they were swimming away from me, in poorer/dimmer light, and with a higher point of view than the one below.
Other times I might want to emphasize the environment a bird is in. For this, I'll sometimes close down my aperture (higher values) to gain some depth of field. This is often done in landscape images to get the entire scene in focus.
Here I used an aperture of f/8 to get both birds in focus. While it looks like the two were near each other, they were far enough away that a smaller aperture would only get one bird in focus. Using a low point of view (just eight inches above the water) helped to give a nice background, and the green trees reflecting in the water gave a pretty green background, instead of a muddy pond bed color!
Oftentimes moving just a few feet in one direction is enough to make a distracting background a pleasant one. It pays to pay attention to what is in front and behind of your subject!
If you need a refresher or tutorial on aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, I'm working on having that blog post done within the next week. Stay tuned!
If you have any questions about any of the techniques discussed (low point of view, pleasing background, good light, and aperture) feel free to add to the comments section! And if you haven't seen my Facebook or Instagram yet, they can be found at:
https://www.facebook.com/TylerHartjePhoto and
https://instagram.com/tyler.hartje
Thanks for reading my blog! Tips and feedback are always welcome!
Tyler
