A Week of Storytelling: Day 6 – Lose the Background

Photograph © Rick Sammon. All rights reserved.
Canon 5D Mark II. Canon 24-105mm lens.

It’s Day 6 of Storytelling Week here on my blog. Each day, I’ll share a photography tip illustrated with one of my favorite photographs that I took this past April at the Sister’s Meal Festival in the province of Guizhou southwest China.

The idea of this weeklong project: When you go to an event, on the other side of the world or the other side of town, try to “tell the whole story” with your pictures.

Today’s tip: Lose the background.

As illustrated in the first post in this series of posts on storytelling, events can be packed with people – subjects that can ruin a picture be creating a distracting background.

One way to lose a distracting background is to get down low and shot upward, as I did here.

When shooting upward, you may need a flash, especially if your background is the sky.

Another technique to blur the background is to use a telephoto lens set at a wide aperture.

Yet another technique is to blur the background. One method is to use Bokeh from Alien Skin. Check out this way-cool plug-in. Click here.

Want more travel photo info? My current app, 24/7 Photo Buffet, offers dozens of photo tips for photographers on the go – even HDR photographers.

Explore the light,
Rick

P.S. Shoot me an email if you are interested in joining my 2011 China workshops. I will have some guest pros leading some workshops, too. Email me: Rick Sammon at mac.com