Tip of the week: For the next few weeks I'm going to cover different ways to control the background in a photograph. The first tip would be to consider your angle from which you are photographing your subject. A variation of just a foot or two can drastically change what's behind the subject in the photo. This example here is from a photo from the front yard. Our front yard has a hillside on it with the hill topping out at the street. My daughter was sitting on the hillside picking flowers (pretty typical). When standing away from her and shooting, I noticed that the neighbors house was somewhat distracting in the background of the image. To get rid of the distraction, I laid on the ground and shot the next few photos on my belly. This new perspective allowed for the elimination of the house in the background.

For the second shot, I did not change my focal length or focal plane. I only changed my perspective from where I took the photo. I find the second view much more engaging since the perspective is somewhat hard to figure out without any background elements to give a sense of perspective or scale. This photo almost looks like a green-screen production with the background digitally placed. Without the distracting backdrop, the viewer is now forced to focus on the subject of the photo (her).