Learn to control the background to make your photos look good

For a photo, the most important thing is the subject, but in fact, the elements used to set off the subject are just as important. Apart from the accessories around the main body, the key to the background of the picture is the broad background, which exists in every photo and occupies the widest position in the picture. In order to distinguish a good photo from a general photo, how to interpret the background is one of the decisive elements that can influence the aesthetics of the picture. Background can make a masterpiece, but it can also easily ruin a good subject. When taking a photo, how do we control the use of background to make our subject look better?

1. Think about whether there is a story in the background

When shooting a picture, we often hope that the picture itself can have enough narrative ability, so that the picture itself can "speak", especially when shooting the content of street photography. Therefore, in the process of shooting, when deciding the content of the picture to be shot, it is necessary to pay attention to whether the background can provide enough information, such as the appearance of the space environment, the light state of the scene and so on. For example, in this photo below, a hen flies through the market. The background of the picture perfectly explains the place and state of the sound of the picture. There are many elements, but they don't prevent us from focusing on the body.

2. Use the lead line

The composition method closely related to changing the viewfinder Angle of the picture is to use the guiding line in the background to lead the guiding line to the subject, so that the viewer can more easily understand the main element in the picture and make the background become the basic element of the picture.

Many photographers like to shoot pictures with strong perspective relationship, such as roads or tunnels. The boundary of roads or tunnels will focus to a point in the infinite distance due to the perspective relationship, and become the most natural guiding line in the picture. It is very simple to use the guide line to compose the picture, which can also help us better control the picture and maximize the depth of the picture, so that viewers can intuitively feel the depth of the picture.

3.Arrange foreground and background elements

Although the photo is a plane carrier, it can also show depth in a two-dimensional picture. In order to realize depth, besides using the guiding line mentioned above, foreground and background elements are also used.

Reflect depth element in the picture can be divided into three kinds of simple, foreground elements, main elements and background elements, of course, we can also use only foreground and can also reflect the depth of the picture, this time will need to put the subject and prospect in a brighter or darker background, in order to highlight the area, and provides a more natural framework for images.

4. Control the background with aperture

Aperture is mainly used for two purposes, one is to provide the amount of light input, and the other is to affect the depth of field. For the depth of field, we can not only use large aperture to create shallow depth of field to separate the subject and background in the picture, but also use the blurred background to create some beautiful scattered scenes as a special background.

Just like the light of the city at night, it can be turned into a background wall with colorful spots. Therefore, controlling the aperture is one of the easiest and most effective ways to control the background.

5. Textured background

Another choice is the background with texture. It is not difficult to find such a heavy picture in the city. Brick walls, curtain walls, green walls and other walls that can be seen everywhere in the city can serve as simple but effective texture background. Like the brick wall of clear water, like the metal shutter of the shop, we can better express the subject we want to express with this background.