What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Foto Friday, a day late


underwater world, originally uploaded by sgrbear724.

The second week of my personal commitment to post photo tips on Fridays, and I'm already a day late! I do have good reasons, though none need be shared here. You'll just have to trust me on that.

Sorry to all three of you interested in participating!! But on the bright side~better late than never! AND~ I'll do better I promise.

~~~

So last week I mentioned the importance of a background being as uncluttered and undistracting as possible. Anyone challenge themselves to check, double check, triple check their backgrounds? I hope so! Because if you did, I bet you noticed quite a bit of difference in your photos! And if you feel like sharing~I'd love a link to check out!

THIS week we have a variation on a theme...still I'd like to talk about backgorunds, but THIS week, I'm going to talk to you about BREAKING the distracting background rule.

SOMETIMES, the background is important! Backgrounds lend feelings to a photograph. If you want to feel serene and calm, nothing will get you there faster than to gaze at a photo of winding road fading in the fog hovering over a wheatfield. If you want to feel intensity or hustle-bustle, nothing will get you there faster than a photo taken on the bustling streets of Vegas or NYC. Sometimes serene is what we are looking to portray and sometimes, it BUSTLE.

In other instances, the background BECOMES the subject. As in the above photo of Corynn at the aquarium. Corynn was not the main focus of the photo here. In fact, she was quite small. I put her in there only as a scale for the fish and to record her excitement over the fish (because, after all, I am a Mama and we had never been to an aquarium before) but what was she excited ABOUT?!? The fish. Therefore, they needed to be the prominant part of the photograph.

The same is true for this photo of Matt and the childer-two on our trip to Harrisburg. I could snap a picture of my handsome hubby pushing a stroller anytime, that's nothing really special...it was the scene surrounding him that made the moment, so naturally it needed to be included. I could have just snapped one of him close just to record him but HE was not the subject of the photo. We were scoping out the city so we had to SEE city in order for the photograph to later evoke what we were experiencing that moment.



So you see, background is a powerful thing! A background can RUIN a perfectly good photograph if one is not careful~with too much clutter, or random trees sticking out of peoples' heads

OR

It can evoke feelings of nostalgia, bring excitement or calm and really MAKE a photograph.

This week, try to find a background worthy of "subject status" and bring the background forward.

Remember though~get to the point. If it is the background that is the subject, don't muddy up the foreground with all sorts of excess.
Your eyes must be drawn to the subject in order to create a good photograph. If you don't know where to look first, then you have failed.

Have fun!!!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE,LOVE,LOVE your pictures! And your blog as well. I pray you are all well. We love to see beautiful sweet Adele, she is such a doll. We have a new boy and he is well; boyish!! Yes of course we love him(so much), but we are girls and like sweet cute girly things!! And after six boys girls are pink and soft, not rugged and manly(deep throated). God Keep all of you so near to Him

Unknown said...

Great tip! I did give it a go this week as far as getting closer...wasn't able to take many photos but they turned out pretty good...I will definitely try your tip this week and post it to let you take a look!

Thanks! :-)
PS-fish & stroller pictures are AWESOME! *gives you a thumbs up* ;)

Peggy said...

I love your photos! I didn't take any last week as we are so trying to get ready for the Tae Kwon Do tournament and the trip to see family.... Right now I'm saving these tips for our trip outside next week. Denver here we come! We'll see if we can all the manly men in my life to cooperate with the pictures.

Any tips on taking pictures of the family pets? Think big puppy and little full grown dog!

I love the picture of Corynn and the fish as well as the stroller photo!!

Take care!!

Christine said...

That background is AMAZING! I love it! You are uber talented!

Orangeblossom said...

Hi, Mrs. N.,

It's me again. I've finished Assignment #2 and the pics are at

http://imagesoforangeblossomorchard.blogspot.com/2009/06/assignment-2.html

Thanks,

Orangeblossom