Tip of the week: My last tip for controlling the background of an image is to change your exposure. If you are able to control the amount of light on the subject (with electronic flash), then you can change your overall exposure to adjust the background. For best results, I like to recommend trying to place your subject in the shade or in a darker environment from the background. This will help you control the amount of light falling on the subject with less effect from the ambient light in the background.

For these images I used a off-camera flash to light the car during the different exposures. The first exposure was with no flash and only using the ambient light. I exposed for the car in the shade and let the background be overexposed. The next exposure added flash and exposed for the background. This way I was able to capture a good exposure in both the foreground and background. My next two exposures underexposed the background and added more power to the flash to help showcase the effect of foreground flash lighting versus the background ambient lighting.